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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78826 ***
+
+
+
+
+                           DYNASTY OF THEODOSIUS
+
+                                 _HODGKIN_
+
+                                  London
+                               HENRY FROWDE
+
+                              [Illustration]
+
+                     OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
+                             AMEN CORNER, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+                                    THE
+                           DYNASTY OF THEODOSIUS
+                                    OR
+                Eighty Years’ Struggle with the Barbarians
+
+                    _A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED TO
+                THE DURHAM LADIES’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION_
+
+                                    BY
+                              THOMAS HODGKIN
+                    _Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford and Durham_
+                    AUTHOR OF ‘ITALY AND HER INVADERS’
+
+                                  Oxford
+                          AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
+                               M.DCCC.LXXXIX
+
+                          [_All rights reserved_]
+
+
+
+
+Dedicated
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE AND CHILDREN.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This little book owes its existence to an invitation addressed to me by
+the Durham Ladies’ Educational Association to deliver to them a short
+course of historical lectures. Being allowed to choose my own subject,
+I naturally chose that with which I was most familiar, the epoch of the
+fall of the Western Empire: but in order to prevent my very familiarity
+with that period from leading me into diffuseness, I took the precaution
+of writing the lectures, and thus, I believe, was preserved from in any
+case over-passing the prescribed limit of an hour and a quarter.
+
+When my course was completed, I found that I had described in brief
+outline so many of the leading events recorded in the first two volumes
+of my book, _Italy and her Invaders_, that it seemed worth while to offer
+the result of my labours to those who might not care to peruse the larger
+work. In order to give a little more completeness to the book, I added a
+lecture (the Second) on the political and social condition of the Romans
+and barbarians, which was not included in the original course.
+
+It will easily be understood that it is only by the rejection of many
+minor details that it is possible to reduce the picture of eighty
+eventful years within the limits of a compendium like the present. For
+most of these details, and for all discussion of the authorities on
+which the history of the period rests, I must refer to my larger work.
+Occasionally, however, I have touched upon some points not thoroughly
+discussed in _Italy and her Invaders_, and when I have done so, I have
+stated my authority in the notes.
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+
+                                LECTURE I.
+
+                            THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+    Limits of the Empire                                               1-7
+
+    Its political organisation—
+
+      The Senate                                                       7-9
+
+      The People                                                      9-13
+
+      The Emperor                                                    13-17
+
+    Periods of Imperial History—
+
+        I. The Julian and Flavian dynasties                             17
+
+       II. The Antonine                                                 18
+
+      III. The Age of Anarchy                                        18-20
+
+       IV. Diocletian: the Age of Restoration                        21-24
+
+           Constantine the Great                                     25-28
+
+           Christianity and the Empire                               28-32
+
+                               LECTURE II.
+
+                        THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON.
+
+     I. The Roman—
+
+           The Emperor                                               33-37
+
+           The official hierarchy                                    37-44
+
+           Social condition of the Empire                            44-48
+
+           ‘Panem et Circenses’                                         49
+
+           The Slave                                                    50
+
+           The Colonus                                                  51
+
+           The Curialis                                                 52
+
+    II. The Teuton—
+
+           Economic condition of the Germans                         55-60
+
+           German land-system                                        60-62
+
+           Relation of the Village-community to the State            62-65
+
+           The Pagus or Gau                                             65
+
+           Kingship and national unity                               67-70
+
+           The Folc-gemot                                            70-71
+
+           Election of the King                                         72
+
+                               LECTURE III.
+
+                         THE COMING OF THE HUNS.
+
+    German ethnology                                                    73
+
+    The Goths                                                           75
+
+    Ulfilas                                                          77-79
+
+    Athanaric and Fritigern                                          79-80
+
+    Irruption of the Huns                                            80-83
+
+    The Visigoths seek an asylum in the Empire                       86-87
+
+    The Visigoths cross the Danube                                      88
+
+    Roman Emperors: Valentinian, Valens, Gratian                     90-91
+
+    The banquet at Marcianople                                       91-93
+
+    Gothic War: battle of Ad Salices                                    94
+
+    Battle of Hadrianople                                            96-99
+
+                               LECTURE IV.
+
+                               THEODOSIUS.
+
+    The Goths besiege Constantinople                                   101
+
+    Failures of the Goths as besiegers                                 102
+
+    The massacre of the Gothic boy-hostages                            104
+
+    Parentage of Theodosius                                            106
+
+    Theodosius associated in the Empire                                107
+
+    Orthodoxy of Theodosius                                        108-110
+
+    Athanaric at Constantinople                                        111
+
+    The Goths become Foederati                                     113-117
+
+    Insurrection of Antioch                                        117-120
+
+    Insurrection of Thessalonica                                   120-122
+
+    Usurpation of Maximus                                          123-126
+
+    His defeat and death                                               127
+
+    Eugenius and Arbogast                                          128-130
+
+    Battle of the Frigidus                                             131
+
+    Death of Theodosius                                                132
+
+    His character                                                      133
+
+                                LECTURE V.
+
+                                 ALARIC.
+
+    The sons of Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius                      134
+
+    Their ministers, Rufinus and Stilicho                          135-137
+
+    Alaric chosen King of the Visigoths                                137
+
+    Alaric invades Greece                                              139
+
+    Stilicho forbidden to defend it                                    139
+
+    Murder of Rufinus                                              141-142
+
+    Second campaign of Stilicho against Alaric                         143
+
+    Alaric as Roman governor of Illyricum                              143
+
+    Alaric’s first invasion of Italy                               145-147
+
+    Invasion by Radagaisus                                         148-151
+
+    Revolt of Constantine in Britain                                   152
+
+    Negotiations between Stilicho and Alaric                           153
+
+    Death of Arcadius                                                  155
+
+    Mutiny at Ticinum. Stilicho slain                              156-158
+
+    Alaric’s first siege of Rome                                   159-161
+
+    Alaric’s second siege of Rome                                      162
+
+    Attalus Emperor                                                162-164
+
+    Alaric’s third siege and capture of Rome                       164-166
+
+    Death of Alaric                                                    167
+
+                               LECTURE VI.
+
+                            PLACIDIA: ATTILA.
+
+    Placidia—
+
+           Historical perspective                                      170
+
+           Early life of Placidia: her captivity                       171
+
+           Ataulfus, successor of Alaric                               172
+
+           His marriage with Placidia                                  174
+
+           Death of Ataulfus                                           175
+
+           Second marriage, widowhood, and exile of Placidia           176
+
+           Death of Honorius                                           176
+
+           Rise and fall of Joannes. Valentinian III, Emperor          177
+
+           Regency of Placidia                                         178
+
+           Aetius                                                      179
+
+    Attila—
+
+           Accession of Attila: his character and appearance       180-182
+
+           Extent of his Empire                                    182-184
+
+           His Embassies to Constantinople                             184
+
+           The vases of Sirmium                                        185
+
+           Honoria’s ring                                              185
+
+           Description by Priscus of Attila’s palace                   186
+
+                ”            ”       the banquet                   187-190
+
+           Deaths of Placidia and Theodosius II                        191
+
+           Marcian and Pulcheria reign                                 191
+
+           Attila prepares for war with the West                       192
+
+           Alliance between the Empire and the Visigoths           192-193
+
+           Attila’s invasion of Gaul                                   193
+
+           Siege of Orleans                                            194
+
+           Battle of Châlons (so called)                           195-197
+
+           Attila’s retreat                                            197
+
+           Attila invades Italy                                        198
+
+           Capture of Aquileia                                         198
+
+           The founders of Venice                                      199
+
+           Attila at Milan                                             200
+
+           Embassy of Pope Leo                                         201
+
+           Return and death of Attila                                  202
+
+           The Hunnish power broken                                    203
+
+                               LECTURE VII.
+
+                                GAISERIC.
+
+    Early history of the Vandals                                       204
+
+    The Vandals enter Gaul                                         205-207
+
+    They cross the Pyrenees and enter Spain                            207
+
+    Death of Gunderic: accession of Gaiseric                           209
+
+    Bonifacius invites the Vandals to enter Africa                 209-211
+
+    The Vandals transported to Africa                                  212
+
+    Bonifacius repents and returns to Ravenna                          215
+
+    Siege of Hippo                                                     216
+
+    Capture of Carthage                                                217
+
+    Appearance, character, and career of Gaiseric                  218-220
+
+    Vandal land-settlement                                             220
+
+    Law of succession to the throne                                    221
+
+    Persecution of the Catholics                                   221-225
+
+    Valentinian murders Aetius                                         226
+
+    Death of Valentinian III. Accession of Maximus                     228
+
+    Gaiseric’s Expedition to Rome. Plunder of the City             229-232
+
+    Captivity of the widow and daughters of Valentinian                232
+
+    Further fortunes of the Theodosian family                          233
+
+    Conclusion                                                         234
+
+
+
+
+FAMILY OF VALENTINIAN.
+
+[Emperors of the East are printed in _Italic_ capitals.]
+
+
+                                           GRATIAN,
+                                    of Cibalis in Pannonia.
+                                              |
+                                +-------------+-------------------+
+                                |                                 |
+    SEVERA, or      =  VALENTINIAN I,        =   JUSTINA,     _VALENS_,
+ Marina (divorced). |    born 321,           |  widow of    born about
+                    | proclaimed Emperor     | the usurper  329, Emperor
+                    |   364, died 375.       | Magnentius   364, slain
+                    |                        |   (he was    at the battle
+  A daughter =  GRATIAN,    =   LAETA        | slain 353).  of Hadrianople
+  of Emperor  born about 359,  (present with |                  378.
+ Constantius  associated with  her mother at |                   |
+     II.      his father as    the siege of  |                VALENS,
+              Augustus 367,     Rome 408).   |                surnamed
+              slain by order                 |                Galata,
+              of Maximus 383.                |                born 366,
+                                             |                died 371.
+                  +----------------+------+--+--------+
+                  |                |      |           |
+           VALENTINIAN II,       JUSTA.  GRATA.     GALLA,
+           born about 371,                         married in
+            Emperor 375,                             387 to
+           dethroned by Maximus 387,              _THEODOSIUS I_,
+           restored 388, slain by                   died 394.
+           order of Arbogast 392.                     |
+                                                GALLA PLACIDIA.
+                                                      |
+                                              VALENTINIAN III, &c.
+
+
+
+
+FAMILY OF THEODOSIUS.
+
+[Emperors of the East are printed in _Italic_ capitals.]
+
+
+                                               |
+                              +----------------+----------------+
+                              |                                 |
+                         THEODOSIUS,                        EUCHERIUS,
+                       Magister Equitum                     cons. 381.
+                     under Valentinian I,
+                   beheaded at Carthage 376.
+                              |
+                              +---------------------------+
+                              |     (387)                 |
+             AELIA    = _THEODOSIUS I_, =    GALLA,      HONORIUS,
+           FLACCILLA, | b. about 346, | dau. of Emp.  d. in Spain
+            d. 386.   |   Emp. 379,   | Valentinian   before his
+                      |    d. 395.    |   I, d. 394.   brother’s
+                      |               |               accession?
+                      |               |                   |
+                      |               |                SERENA, = STILICHO,
+                      |               |                killed  | killed
+                      |               |                 408.   |  408.
+                      |               |                        |
+                      |               |  +---------+-----------+
+                      |               |  |         |           |
+                      |               |MARIA  THERMANTIA,  EUCHERIUS,
+                      |               | {1}     d. 415.    killed 408.
+                      |               |          {2}
+                      |               |
+                +-----+----------+    +--------------------+   CONSTANTIUS
+                |                |                         |         III,
+                |        (398)   |  (408)            (414) |    (417) d.
+ EUDOXIA, = _ARCADIUS_,  {1} = HONORIUS = {2}   ATAULFUS =  GALLA   =  421.
+ dau of   |  b. 377,          b. 384,        K. of the | PLACIDIA,|
+ Bauto    | Augustus         Augustus        Visigoths |b. between|
+ the      |383, Emp.         393, Emp.  (brother-in-law|388 and   |
+ Frank,   |of the East       of West       of Alaric), |393, d.   |
+ d. 404.  |395, d. 408.    395, d. 423.     murd. 415. |about 450.|
+          |                                            |          |
+          |                                       THEODOSIUS, d.  |
+          |                                       in infancy.     |
+          |                                                       |
+          +--------+----------+----------+----------+-------+     |
+                   |          |          |          |       |     |
+  EUDOCIA   = _THEODOSIUS  FLACCILLA,  _PULCHERIA_  ARCADIA,  MARINA,|
+ (Athenais),|  II_, b. 401,  b. 397.    b. 399,   b. 400.   b. 403.|
+ dau. of    | Augustus 402,            d. 453.                    |
+ Leontius,  |  succeeded               = (451)             +------+---+
+ Prof. of   | his father               _MARCIAN_,            |          |
+ Rhetoric   | 408, d. 450.             d. 457.             |          |
+ at Athens, +--------------------------------+             |          |
+ d. 454.                                     |       (PLACIDUS)   HONORIA,
+                                          EUDOXIA, = VALENTINIAN  b. 418.
+                                           b. 422. | III, b. 419,
+                                                   |  Emp. 425,
+                     +------------------+----------+ assassinated 455.
+                     |                  |
+          OLYBRIUS,  =  PLACIDIA,    EUDOXIA, = HUNERIC,
+           Emp. 472. |                        | K. of Vandals,
+                     |                        | d. 484.
+    AREOBINDUS, = JULIANA                  HILDERIC,
+    cons. 506.  |                       K. of Vandals,
+             OLYBRIUS.                     d. 533.
+
+Transcriber’s Note: Whilst this proves that a complex family tree _can_
+be fitted into 75 characters wide, that doesn’t mean that it _should_.
+These genealogies are included as illustrations in the HTML version, to
+which the reader is recommended to refer.
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+
+    Page 27, line 5 from bottom, _for_ 523 _read_ 323
+     ”   91,  ”  16, _for_ get _read_ yet
+
+Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected, although the first
+one was printed correctly in the first place and didn’t need to be listed
+here.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: =Shield of Theodosius=
+
+(_SILVER_)
+
+FOUND NEAR MERIDA IN 1847, NOW IN THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL
+ACADEMY AT MADRID.
+
+(_Copied from A. Delgado’s ‘Memoria historico-critica sobre el gran disco
+di Teodosio,’ Madrid, 1849._)
+
+Theodosius, seated on the central throne, receives from a nobleman
+of ‘illustrious’ rank an address, perhaps congratulating him on the
+_decennalia_ of Arcadius (393). Arcadius is seated on his right, Honorius
+on his left, each attended by two _protectores_ (guardsmen). In the lower
+part of the shield is the recumbent figure of Hispania, surrounded by
+emblems of prosperity. Above, ‘D(ominus) N(oster) Theodosius Perpet(uus)
+Aug(ustus) ob diem felicissimum X.’
+
+  _Hodgkin’s Theodosius._]                        [_Clarendon Press._]
+
+
+
+
+THE DYNASTY OF THEODOSIUS.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE I.
+
+THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+In Longfellow’s Golden Legend the following question is asked:—
+
+                        ‘Say to me
+    What the great Voices Four may be
+    That quite across the world do flee
+          And are not heard by men?’
+
+and this answer given:—
+
+    ‘The Voice of the Sun in heaven’s dome,
+    The Voice of the murmuring of Rome,
+    The Voice of a Soul that goeth home,
+          And the Angel of the Rain.’
+
+‘The voice of the murmuring of Rome.’ That was indeed a mighty voice; how
+all-powerful, how nearly equivalent to the voice of the whole civilised
+human race, is more vividly impressed upon us by every year of deeper
+study of the history of the world fifteen centuries ago.
+
+[Sidenote: _Extent of the Roman Empire._]
+
+Let us try by a very rapid summary to indicate the meaning which the
+words ‘Imperium Romanum’ conveyed to him who heard them in the days when
+the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was still standing and still thronged
+with earnest worshippers.
+
+[Sidenote: _North Britain._]
+
+Let us go forth from this city which clusters on its seven hills
+around the Tomb of St. Cuthbert. Those hills are untrodden forest or
+undistinguished pasture-ground, and all the glory of architecture and
+all the wealth of sacred associations which will one day crown them are
+unknown, for we are now in the second century after Christ, and Durham is
+neither _castra_ nor _mansio_ nor _mutatio_ in the map of Roman Britain.
+But if we go a few miles up the Wear, near to that place in ‘the land
+of Oaks,’ where the Bishop of Durham will one day build his castle, we
+shall find there, upon a high promontory of table-land overlooking the
+stream, the spacious camp of Vinovia with its baths and its hypocausts,
+doubtless also with its temple and its magazines. Here we strike a great
+Roman road. Follow that road northwards over the hills, and you will
+come to the camp of Lanchester on the Browney. Another stretch over wild
+moorlands, and we reach Ebchester, in the pleasant valley of the Derwent.
+Another, and we strike the Tyne at Corstopitum (Corbridge). And so on by
+more camps and stations than I need weary you with the names of, till we
+reach the great camp, or rather series of camps, which surround the high
+altar-like hill of Birrenswark in Dumfriesshire, overlooking the sandy
+Solway. Yet still the Roman road is running northwards, till at last it
+reaches the Wall of Antoninus, somewhere near the Frith of Clyde.
+
+[Sidenote: _Midland and Southern Britain._]
+
+Southwards the same road pursues its course, uncompromising and
+undeviating, over the great ridge of hills which separates you from the
+Tees. Across the Swale at Cataractonium it leads us to Isurium, which
+will one day be represented by the pleasant old-fashioned village of
+Boroughbridge, and where we see for the first time those pictured floors,
+the tesselated pavements which are so abundant in Southern Britain and in
+Gaul. Then it takes us to Eboracum, the great Roman city of the North,
+the home of the Sixth Legion, the place where the aged Severus will lay
+down the purple at the bidding of Death, and where the young Constantine
+will assume it at the bidding of the soldiery. Thence across the country
+south-westwards, over those hills and dales of Yorkshire and Lancashire,
+which are now among the poorest and most solitary, as they will one day
+be among the richest and the most thickly populated portions of the
+island of the Britons. So we reach Deva, or Chester on the Dee, where
+the Twentieth Legion have built their stately city, with its temples,
+its baths, and its spacious praetorium for their commanding officer. And
+so from thence, through Cheshire and Staffordshire, and on by a route
+pretty nearly coinciding with that which will, after many centuries, be
+taken by the North-Western Railway, till at last we reach that city,
+comparatively unimportant in the official map of Roman Britain, but which
+the concourse of merchants is even now making important in spite of
+prefects and procurators, ‘the city formerly known as Londinium, but now
+named Augusta.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Existing traces of Roman occupation._]
+
+In our own day, at nearly every step of our course along this great
+highway, which our ancestors named the Watling Street, there is some
+trace of the Roman legionary and his sojourn in our island. Here
+the coins of some military treasure chest buried in haste and never
+reclaimed; there the shells of the oysters or the bones of the beef which
+the soldiers consumed; here a dedication to some native god bearing an
+uncouth name, with whom they thought it safer to be on friendly terms;
+there the pathetic epitaph of a departed wife ‘who lived with her husband
+xxx years, “_sine ulla macula_,”’ with no spot upon her goodness; here
+the walls of a camp turned by centuries into mere grassy mounds, but
+still by their rectangular shape rounded at the corners, showing the
+handiwork of the Roman surveyor; there an inscription recording the
+rebuilding of a bath or a granary, ‘_vetustate conlapsum_’ (which had
+fallen in through age), and reminding us how old and venerable the
+buildings erected by the first conquerors of Britain must have appeared
+long before the last Roman soldier, standing upon the stern of the
+departing vessel, waved his sad ‘_Vale Britannia_’ to our island.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _Boundaries of the Roman World._]
+
+All these vestiges of the great world-Empire, when one examines them
+patiently day after day, as it has often been my privilege to do in
+travelling along one of the great Roman roads in our own country or
+abroad, produce an effect upon the mind incomparably stronger and deeper
+than results from simply reading the story of the conquest of a province
+in the pages of Caesar or Tacitus. And now multiply this picture at
+least thirty-fold in order to make it justly represent the whole extent
+of the Empire. Cross the sea from ‘Londinium, now Augusta,’ to the
+mouth of the Rhine. Travel for days up that stately river and see the
+legionaries swarming upon its western, and not unknown upon its eastern
+bank. Trace the 300 miles of stake-covered rampart which join the Middle
+Rhine to the Middle Danube, and along every mile of which a Roman soldier
+is tramping. Descend the Danube from Ratisbon to the Euxine and see every
+foot of its right bank held by Rome, who for more than a century holds a
+province on the left bank also (the province of Dacia), and stations her
+legionaries on the crests of the Carpathian Mountains. Take ship and sail
+over the foggy Euxine, and there, in its extreme south-eastern corner,
+near where Jason and his companions sought the Golden Fleece, recognise
+once more the Roman boundary. Follow that boundary over the mountains of
+Armenia to the upper waters of the Tigris. Cross ‘the great river, the
+River Euphrates,’ near the place where Eliezer waited for Rebekah by the
+well; and then encompassing Damascus and the mysterious cities of Bashan,
+let the border come down past the Dead Sea, past Mount Pisgah and Mount
+Sinai, and so overleaping the Red Sea, let it reach the valley of the
+Nile. Here the frontier towards the barbarism of Ethiopia is the same
+that the modern protectors of Egypt have drawn close to the city of Syene
+(now Assouan); leaving 800 miles of the rich Nile valley as the granary
+of Rome. All along the northern coast of Africa, Cyrene, Tripolis,
+Carthage, Numidia, Mauretania, whatever there is of civilised, stable,
+wealth-producing life (and it is a broad enough belt in some places)
+is all Roman by obedience, and much of it Latin by speech. At last the
+boundary goes out at the Atlantic Ocean where Hercules once relieved
+Atlas of his load. Men gazing forth upon the waste of waters, and half
+discovering, half dreaming, concerning the Fortunate Isles beyond, are
+constrained at length to admit the fact that the great Empire has found
+its limit, and that if there be other worlds to the West they are worlds
+beyond the world of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Orbis Romanus nearly coincided with the Orbis Terrarum._]
+
+It was an immense extent of territory which the Roman god Terminus thus
+marked out, and (as has been often pointed out, but is a fact of the
+greatest importance) it more nearly embraced the whole of the then known
+and civilised world than any Empire that has since been seen. True, the
+mysterious river of Asiatic civilisation, as represented by China and
+India, flowed on, not blending its waters with those which the Tiber
+ruled. But these countries were practically altogether beyond the horizon
+of the Empire. During the first three centuries of our era there was only
+one civilised power of which Rome was conscious as a possible rival to
+herself, and that was the power of Persia. Her sovereign, whether he were
+known as Parthian or Persian, as Arsacid or Sassanid, took to himself
+proud titles, calling himself ‘King of Kings,’ and so forth, and often by
+his devastating raids inflicted sore disaster on the Eastern provinces
+of Rome; but the Empire was certainly far the stronger power, and many
+of the abler Emperors could probably, if they had deemed it wise to make
+the attempt, have accomplished what Julian so narrowly missed and what
+Heraclius triumphantly performed, the overthrow of the Persian monarchy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _Government of the Roman State._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Senatus Populus Que Romanus._]
+
+This vast territory had been acquired by the municipality of an Italian
+city under a government which was in some respects the best adapted for
+gaining and for consolidating dominion that the world has ever seen.
+S.P.Q.R.: these four letters formed the talisman which floated on the
+victorious standards of Rome, whether they crowned the misty heights of
+the Cheviots or were mirrored in the waters of the Orontes. The Senate
+and the People of Rome: we must pause for a few moments on these words to
+consider what they implied.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Roman Senate under the Republic._]
+
+(1) The Senate of Rome, in its best days reminding the beholder of an
+assembly of Kings, debating the affairs of the Republic with a gravity,
+an earnestness and a conciseness very unlike the showy rhetoric of a
+Greek _Ecclesia_ or the vapid verbiage of a modern House of Commons or
+House of Representatives: this was the body which gave coherence and
+unity to the policy of the great Latin city, which prevented it from
+being swayed to and fro by such gusts of passion or misplaced sentiment
+as ruined the Empire of Athens; which caused it to pursue, century after
+century, the same undeviating course, and to act upon the same maxims
+of statesmanship—hard maxims often, and inspired by a terrible egotism,
+but successful. It was the Senate which enabled the Roman State to feel
+the proud confidence that was expressed with less justice by that patient
+toiler, Philip of Spain, ‘Time and I against any one else in the world.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Not a mere hereditary aristocracy._]
+
+One source of the Senate’s strength was derived from the fact that it was
+never in theory and seldom in practice a mere hereditary aristocracy.
+Election to some one of the great offices of the State into which the
+kingly power had been divided, Consulship, Praetorship, Quaestorship, was
+the door by which entrance was gained into the ‘assembly of Kings’—and
+this election in the better days of the Republic implied a certain
+amount of popular respect if not of popular favour—but once admitted,
+the Senator had his seat practically for life, and needed not to tremble
+at every changing wind of popular opinion, lest the withdrawal of the
+favour of his constituents should doom him to political annihilation. The
+chasm which once separated the Patrician from the Plebeian, and which
+made it impossible for the latter to enter the Senate, had been filled
+up long before Rome began to play her great part among the nations of
+the earth: but it is true that a new aristocracy of consular families,
+partly Patrician and partly Plebeian, had arisen on the ruins of the old.
+A Terentius Varro, a Marius, a Cicero could by great energy, by military
+successes, or by surpassing eloquence, break through into the charmed
+circle, but the outcry that was raised at the presumption of such a
+_novus homo_ showed that the event was a rare one.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Censorship._]
+
+One institution, however, which modern aristocracies would do well to
+copy, tended to save the Senate from the worst perils of a hereditary
+oligarchy. To be ruled by a proud nobility which respects itself is
+perhaps not pleasant, but it is endurable. But to be ruled by ‘hereditary
+legislators’ who do not observe the ordinary decencies of life is an
+ignominy too galling to be borne. The power of the _Censor_ to degrade
+from his Senatorial office any man who offended against the strict
+old-fashioned code of Roman morality, a power which in the best days of
+the Republic was wielded with merciless severity and without respect of
+persons, must have largely contributed to that moral ascendency of the
+Senate which made it for four centuries as supreme in Roman politics as
+the House of Commons has been for the last two centuries in the politics
+of Britain.
+
+[Sidenote: _The People of Rome._]
+
+(2) The People of Rome, the Quirites, assembled by their centuries,
+or their tribes, under an Italian sky, in the Campus Martius or the
+Forum—these also had their allotted share in the development of the
+greatness of Rome: these formed the strong steadily beating heart,
+without which all the accumulated wisdom of the Senate, the brain of
+the State, would have been of no avail. Questions of peace and war, and
+questions of political reform, were brought before them, generally,
+it is true, on the motion of the Senate, but so as to cast the final
+responsibility on the people; and during the greater part of the lifetime
+of the Republic those solemn trials of political offenders which
+correspond most nearly to our own impeachments took place at the bar of
+the popular assembly.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Tribunes._]
+
+To guard these rights and to secure the meanest citizen of Rome from
+oppression on the part of some haughty aristocrat, the Tribunes of the
+Commonalty were called into being, that unique class of magistrates
+whose power of ‘intercession’ could bring the whole machinery of the
+State to a deadlock, and upon whose ‘sacro-sanct’ persons the proudest
+Consul, fresh from victory over the enemies of Rome, might not lay hands
+without incurring the penalty of outlawry. The office which the Member
+of Parliament has hitherto discharged when he brings the grievance of
+a constituent before the House of Commons; the office of redresser of
+all wrongs and browbeater of all magistrates, which the Public Press
+has of later time arrogated to itself—these offices were for centuries
+discharged by the Tribunes of the Commonalty. Upon the whole we may
+believe that the Tribunician power was a useful counterpoise to the
+immense authority vested in Consuls and Praetors: but it was always a
+power which in the hands of a dishonest demagogue might be abused for the
+purpose of obstruction. It was always useful only as a brake is useful to
+the driver of a railway train; and in the latter days of the Republic
+it was a brake suddenly and clumsily applied, by which the Engine of the
+State was being continually thrown off the line.
+
+[Sidenote: _Political decline._]
+
+[Sidenote: _B.C. 367-146._]
+
+But, such as they were, these two great depositaries of power, the Senate
+and the People, wrought together in reasonable harmony, and upon the
+whole for the good of Rome and the fast widening Roman world, during
+the two centuries which intervened between the admission of Plebeians
+to the Consulate and the Third Punic War. With the fall of Rome’s old
+rival, Carthage, a rapid change for the worse manifested itself in the
+Roman character. Corruption entered the Senate and brutal violence
+disgraced the Assembly of the People. The young Roman politician half
+ruined himself over the shows of gladiators and wild beasts that were
+to purchase from the commonalty his election to the successive offices
+which were the steps in the ladder of his promotion. The mob cheered and
+laughed, but the provinces groaned, for out of their plundered cities
+and beggared agriculture the Propraetor or Proconsul reckoned to recoup
+himself for the heavy entrance-fees which he had paid to gain admission
+to the Roman Senate. These abuses became at length too glaring for even
+the seared consciences of Roman politicians to endure. Laws against
+official extortion, ‘_de repetundis pecuniis_,’ were passed by the
+people—a doubtful boon to the provincials, for now the governor robbed
+them, not for himself only, but for the rivals and the demagogues whose
+silence he had to purchase by bribes. In the train of the governor went
+the usurer, lending money at ruinous rates to the provincial to enable
+him to pay the clamorous tax-gatherer. Even Brutus, that Puritan among
+Roman statesmen, sought to compel the inhabitants of Salamis to pay him
+compound interest at the rate of 48 per cent. per annum. Under these
+accumulated oppressions the fair countries round the Mediterranean were
+fast sinking into misery and despair, the very life-blood being drained
+out of them by the insatiable oligarchs of Rome. And during the greater
+part of this time, while the Senators were treating the civilised world
+as their own private farm, and farming it like a tenant who is under
+notice to quit and will get all he can out of the soil, the so-called
+People of Rome were every year sinking lower and lower into degradation,
+becoming a mere mob of freedmen and foreigners, the collected sewage of
+the world. The Constitution—notwithstanding a temporary reaction under
+Sulla—was becoming more and more democratic, as the people were becoming
+more utterly unworthy to be trusted with power. Armed bands of hired
+bravoes fought with one another in the streets of Rome, and on the day of
+a hotly-disputed election or the passing of an unpopular law, the statues
+in the Forum were splashed with the blood of the slain.
+
+[Sidenote: _Shelley on the decay of Roman freedom._]
+
+I know no words which more vividly bring before our minds the contrast
+between the Rome of Cincinnatus and the Rome of Clodius than this verse
+from Shelley’s ‘Ode to Liberty’:—
+
+      ‘Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom, fairest
+    Like a wolf-cub, from some Cadmean Maenad
+      She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest[1]
+    From that Elysian food was yet unweanëd.
+      And many a deed of terrible uprightness
+    By thy sweet love was sanctified,
+          And in thy smile and by thy side
+          Saintly Camillus lived and firm Atilius[2] died.
+    But when blood stained thy robe of vestal whiteness,
+      And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne,
+    Thou didst desert with spirit-winged lightness
+      The Senate of the oppressors: they sank prone
+    Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed
+          Faint echoes of Ionian song. That tone
+          Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown.’
+
+‘Slaves of one tyrant.’ That was the doom, the righteous doom of the
+Roman Senate and People. Corruption above and anarchy below had slain
+that Public Virtue without which a Republic cannot live: and now the only
+hope of the world lay in the uprising of some one man who should save
+Rome from herself, and rescue from her Senate and People the provinces
+which they had won but could no longer govern.
+
+[Sidenote: _Caesar._]
+
+This necessary work was performed by the man who stands head and
+shoulders above all other statesmen, as Isaiah above all other Prophets,
+as Shakespeare above all other Dramatists,—the man whose name still
+means Emperor to more than a hundred millions of mankind, GAIUS JULIUS
+CAESAR. It may be truly said that the further we get away from Caesar
+the Dictator, the greater his work appears. Superficial students of
+history used to think of it as only lasting for five centuries (yet
+five centuries, the interval of time that separates us from Chaucer and
+Wycliffe, is not a contemptible interval in a nation’s life): but the
+more scientific school of modern historians rightly claim that the work
+of Julius Caesar, the organisation of _Imperium Romanum_, outlived not
+only the fall of Rome, but the fall of Constantinople also, and was only
+destroyed by ‘the bastard Caesar,’ Napoleon, in 1806, if indeed it be
+not, in a sense, living still.
+
+[Sidenote: _Theory of the Principate._]
+
+As the various offices of the Republic had been formed chiefly out of
+the power of the ancient kings, it might have seemed the obvious course
+to recombine them into one, and crown Caesar king. Warned by the murmurs
+of the crowd on the day of the Lupercalia, but also doubtless following
+his own instinct as a statesman, Julius—and his nephew Augustus after
+him—chose a wiser course. The name of Republic should still remain:
+S.P.Q.R. should still be inscribed on the banners of the legions, but
+the powers of the Republic should all be grasped in a single hand. There
+had been Dictators created for special emergencies: Julius would be a
+life-long Dictator. Successful generals had been saluted Imperator by
+their soldiers on the field of battle: Julius would be emphatically
+_the_ Imperator. Grave and reverend men, the fathers of the Senate, had
+been hailed with the title _Princeps_: Augustus would now in middle life
+be greeted as Princeps. Above all, the Tribunes of the Commonalty had
+possessed enormous powers for the prevention of legislation of which
+they disapproved, and their persons had been invested with especial
+sanctity. Augustus would now gather into himself all the obstructive
+powers of the whole College of Tribunes, and his person should be
+‘sacro-sanct’ as theirs had been. Special defenders of the Commonalty
+were now no longer needed. The new Imperator claimed, and not altogether
+without reason, that _he_ was defender of the people, and therefore each
+year by a fresh and solemn act he was ‘invested with the Tribunician
+power.’
+
+[Sidenote: _A Monarchy under Republican forms._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Deference of the good Emperors to the Senate._]
+
+[Sidenote: _The bad Emperors delighted in degrading it._]
+
+Our own Constitutional monarchy is often called ‘a Republic veiled under
+monarchical forms.’ The Empire of the Caesars was just the reverse: an
+absolute monarchy veiled under the forms of a Republic. The analogy may
+be carried a little further. Just as every really great and patriotic
+Prime Minister, under a Constitutional monarchy like ours, veils somewhat
+of the power which in fact is his under the forms of deference to the
+throne, and does this not in servile adoration for rank, but because
+he knows that in the institution of Monarchy there is a fund of latent
+power which it were unwise to squander, and which may one day be sorely
+needed for the defence of the life of the nation against enemies from
+without or from within, even so the greatest and best of the Roman
+Emperors, while holding all power in their hands, used that power as
+much as possible in harmony with the Senate and in conformity with the
+Senate’s advice; and thus, while preserving the prestige of an ancient
+and venerable assembly, also retained in the State a force which might
+operate as a counterpoise, though a feeble one, should the vast powers of
+the Emperor pass into the keeping of a foolish or wicked successor. But
+while the good and patriotic Emperors—Augustus, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius,
+Claudius Gothicus, Probus—delighted to magnify the moral authority of the
+Senate, the weak and dissolute Emperors, maddened by the possession of
+absolute power, delighted to trample upon and insult it. Caligula forced
+Senators of the highest rank to walk for miles before his chariot, or to
+wait upon him at table, each clad in the linen girdle of a slave. Nero
+wrung from the loathing Senate a formal approbation of the murder of his
+mother, and insisted on 400 of its members performing as gladiators in
+the Amphitheatre. And Domitian, according to the well-known story in the
+pages of Juvenal, summoned the trembling Conscript Fathers in the dead of
+night to deliberate on the best manner of cooking an enormous turbot.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Provinces were the gainers by the Imperial system._]
+
+But though the Senators groaned under the insults and the cruelty of
+the bad Emperors (of whom in the first century of the Empire there was
+undoubtedly a terrible preponderance over the good ones) there can be
+little doubt that for the Empire at large the change to the Imperial
+system was an enormous benefit. The populace of Rome had their rations
+and their gladiatorial exhibitions (_panem et circenses_) regularly, and
+what was more important, the police and the water supply of the great
+City were attended to as they had never been before. The provinces were
+no longer exposed to the unchecked cupidity of some dissolute aristocrat,
+eager to suck them dry during his short term of office and then to hurry
+back to play the great game of politics in Rome. Unjust governors, men
+like Pontius Pilate and Felix, undoubtedly still bore sway; but at least
+they had as a rule a longer term of office, and less need therefore to
+drain the province all at once. And the thought of the terrible Caesar
+at Rome, who, however cruel and rapacious himself, was generally quick
+to punish cruelty and rapacity in others, the dread of hearing, after
+a manifestly unjust sentence, the fateful words pronounced, ‘Provoco
+ad Caesarem[3],’ kept many a provincial governor, who may have been at
+heart no better than Verres or Gabinius, from shearing the helpless sheep
+before him as closely as they would have been shorn in the later days of
+the Republic. It is one of the commonplaces of history that even Nero
+himself was hated only in Rome, and that after his death the story that
+he still lived and would one day return and resume the purple, was told
+and lovingly cherished in many of the provinces.
+
+[Sidenote: _Chief periods of Imperial history._]
+
+[Sidenote: _I. the Julian Dynasty, 99 years. (B.C. 31-A.D. 68.)_]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Flavian Dynasty, 27 years. (69-96.)_]
+
+[Sidenote: _II. The Antonines, 84 years. (96-180.)_]
+
+The history of the Empire naturally groups itself into periods, each
+of about a century in duration. The Julian dynasty, from the battle of
+Actium (B.C. 31) to the death of Nero (A.D. 68), fills up ninety-nine
+years. We pass lightly over the twenty-seven years of the Flavian
+dynasty (69-96), which is in some respects like a copy of the Julian,
+Vespasian being a somewhat commonplace Augustus and Domitian a vulgar
+Nero, and we come to the great and glorious age of the Antonines[4]. For
+eighty-four years (A.D. 96-180) a series of sovereigns, the best, the
+wisest and the most statesmanlike that the world has ever seen—Nerva,
+Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus—sat upon the throne of the world.
+What has been already said as to the happiness of the provinces under
+the Julian dynasty might be said without any qualification, as far as
+the rulers could bring happiness, of the century of Antonine rule. But
+according to the trite quotation—
+
+    ‘How small, of all that human hearts endure,
+    That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.’
+
+The course of nature seems as if it had been out of joint during that
+otherwise happy century. Destructive earthquakes, wide-wandering
+pestilences and grievous famines marked its course; and at the close
+of it came that terrible irruption of barbarians from the lands of the
+Middle Danube which is known as the Marcomannic War, and which very
+nearly brought about the fall of the Roman Empire two centuries too soon.
+
+[Sidenote: _III. The Age of Anarchy, 105 years. (180-285.)_]
+
+[Sidenote: _Debased Coinage._]
+
+The stately and philosophic virtue of the Antonine Emperors led to a
+terrible anti-climax—the mad sensuality and cruelty of the bull-necked
+Commodus. And now began that terrible third century, in which the great
+World-Empire seemed perpetually as if it were on the point of going to
+pieces, through its own weakness and corruption, before the barbarians
+were ready even to gather up its fragments. It had been discovered ‘that
+an emperor could be made elsewhere than in Rome,’ and in every province,
+almost in every legionary camp, there was an upstart General eager to
+avail himself of this discovery, eager to wrap himself in the purple and
+to lay hold of what the Greek historians call ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχή, ‘the rule
+of the universe.’ The strongest memory can hardly retain the names of
+all the obscure adventurers who thus blossomed into a little temporary
+notoriety, and who were murdered by a rival or fell on the field of
+battle before their purple had lost the lustre of its newness. Province
+thus fighting against province and civil war being the normal condition
+of the Empire, the misery and poverty which everywhere prevailed can
+hardly be imagined, and are but scantily pourtrayed for us by the
+wretched historians of the time. Two things, however, always occur to
+my mind as typical of this woeful age—its coinage and its camps. Take a
+coin of one of the earlier Emperors, say a bronze sestertius of Domitian,
+which lies before me while I write: see the clear bold relief of the
+laurel-crowned head, the sharp, well-cut letters of the inscription,
+and then compare it with a (so-called) silver denarius of Valerian or
+Gallienus—a thin bit of copper with a wash of silver or pewter over it,
+and upon it the barbarous effigy of a head wearing a radiated crown and
+surrounded by an almost illegible inscription. From a mere glance at the
+coins you feel at once that the owner of a sestertius (whose nominal
+value was twopence-halfpenny) under Domitian was a richer man than the
+owner of a denarius (the equivalent of four sestertii) under Gallienus.
+
+[Sidenote: _Degenerate Architecture._]
+
+And the camps: go to Housesteads or Chesters and see the splendid blocks
+of masonry which belong to the age of the Antonines; see the masonry
+of a very different and far inferior kind, small and mean and easily
+overthrown, which marks the age of Constantine, after the close of the
+third century. But in between these two periods of original building and
+late repair you may often find a mass of confused _débris_, sometimes
+with the marks of fire upon them. That shapeless mound tells the story of
+the third century. While every little Tribune or Centurion was coquetting
+with the soldiers under his command, relaxing discipline and permitting
+plunder, in the hope that they might some morning rush to the Praetorium,
+put on him the purple robe and hail him as Imperator, meantime the _Pax
+Romana_ was becoming a bitter bye-word over all the Empire, and in our
+own country the savage Caledonians were breaking down the barrier of
+Hadrian, setting fire to Cilurnum and Borcovicus, swarming across the
+Tyne and Tees, and carrying fire and sword far into the heart of Britain.
+
+[Sidenote: _IV. The Age of Restoration, 93 years. (285-378.)_]
+
+The deliverer of the world from this tempest of anarchy and disruption,
+the true Second Founder of the Empire was the son of a Dalmatian slave,
+Diocletian. As his reign began A.D. 285, as the work of reorganisation
+which was commenced by him was continued by Constantine (306-337), and
+as the political system thus inaugurated lasted unimpaired till 378, the
+date of the battle of Hadrianople, we may call this the fourth century of
+the Empire, the period of Restoration.
+
+[Sidenote: _Objects of the Diocletianic reform._]
+
+The great objects aimed at and accomplished by Diocletian were the
+increase of the majesty of the Imperial office, the equable diffusion
+of defensive power through all parts of the Empire, the welding of a
+strong chain of rights and responsibilities which should vibrate from the
+Emperor on his throne to the lowest official in the most distant province.
+
+[Sidenote: _Increased veneration for the Imperial dignity._]
+
+(1) The increased majesty of the Emperor’s office. All pretence of his
+being only the first citizen in a Republic, only the most eminent member
+of the Senate, and so on, was now done away with. The Emperor now wore
+on his head a pearl-bordered diadem, on his feet sandals studded with
+gems; he was surrounded by a splendid retinue, and the petitioner who
+approached him—though he were a member of one of the proudest families
+in the Roman Senate—had to prostrate himself on the ground and _adore_
+the Imperial Majesty. Thus at length the Roman Imperator stood fully
+revealed, a monarch as haughty and as absolute as Darius or Sapor. In all
+this, censorious critics traced the overweening pride of the Dalmatian
+slave’s son exalted to the pinnacle of earthly greatness: yet it is
+probable that policy had as much share as pride in the self-exaltation
+of Diocletian. During the long troubles of the third century, when every
+legion was making and unmaking Emperors, the highest office in the
+State had lost all dignity and all prestige: and if it was really to
+recover itself and become, as Diocletian would have it, the true centre
+of gravity of the State, it was necessary that it should once again
+seem awful and majestic. The same statesmanlike spirit which dictated
+to Augustus the suppression of the visible signs of regal magnificence,
+suggested to Diocletian their multiplication and embellishment.
+
+[Sidenote: _Division of labour._]
+
+(2) It had become manifest to a statesman’s eye that the vast Roman world
+could no longer be ruled from Rome alone. On the Rhine, on the Danube,
+on the Euphrates, strong armies were required to guard the frontiers:
+yet it was precisely from these armies, strangers to the Imperial city
+and to the person of the legitimate Augustus, that the brood of usurpers
+and tyrants, claimants for the Imperial purple, was being perpetually
+recruited. Diocletian now carved out the Roman Empire into four great
+Prefectures, each large enough to satisfy the ambition of a Charles V or
+a Louis XIV, and gave to each of these Prefectures its own court, its own
+capital, its own elaborately organised official hierarchy.
+
+[Sidenote: _The four Prefectures._]
+
+I. ‘The Gauls,’ comprising Britain, Gaul, Spain, and part of Morocco,
+and reaching from the Firth of Clyde to Mount Atlas, had its centre of
+government at Augusta Trevirorum (Trier on the Moselle).
+
+II. ‘Italy,’ comprising Raetia, Italy, Sicily, and the wealthy provinces
+of Africa, was still in theory governed from Rome; but practically its
+Emperor during the whole of the fourth century was generally resident at
+Mediolanum (Milan).
+
+III. Illyricum, the smallest of the four Prefectures, included the
+provinces of the Middle Danube, the western portion of the country lately
+known as Turkey in Europe, and Greece. Sirmium on the Save was generally
+the residence of its Emperor.
+
+IV. All the rest of the Empire formed the rich and important Prefecture
+of the East (Oriens). Its Emperor for the most part resided at Antioch,
+from whence he watched the ever menacing attitude of the Sassanid kings
+of Persia.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _Transmission of the Imperial power._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Abdication of Diocletian, 305._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Constantius. Elevation of Constantine, 25 July,
+306._]
+
+The great scheme of Imperial government matured by the brain of
+Diocletian, provided not only for the exercise but also for the
+transmission of power. The adoptive system, which had given to the Empire
+all the noblest sovereigns of the Antonine period, was to be revived in
+all its vigour. Two Emperors ruling as Augusti were to adopt two younger
+colleagues as their sons, who were to bear the humbler title of Caesar,
+and were to administer those Prefectures in which the danger of war was
+the keenest, and the labour of ruling the most severe. As in the course
+of nature the two senior partners, the Augusti, moved off the scene,
+the Caesars were to take their place and adopt two new Caesars to ease
+them of their burden, and one day inherit their dignity. An elaborate
+and ingenious scheme, and one which might conceivably have preserved
+the Empire from civil war at least for two or three generations, but
+which in fact was broken to pieces by that longing after the hereditary
+transmission of power and wealth which is one of the deepest instincts of
+humanity. Diocletian and Maximian (a brave, uncultivated soldier) were
+the two first Augusti: Constantius and Galerius the two first Caesars.
+After a prosperous reign of twenty years, enfeebled health and perhaps a
+desire to see with his own eyes the success of his great design, induced
+Diocletian voluntarily to resign the purple, and Maximian, who had no
+such philosophical inclinations and who was still in the lusty vigour
+of middle life, was compelled to follow the example of his patron. Thus
+did Constantius and Galerius become the two new Augusti, but Galerius,
+who was the son-in-law and special confidant of Diocletian, had the
+choice of the two new Caesars, and chose a nephew and a dependent of
+his own, Maximin Daza and Severus, neither of them really fitted for
+‘the rule of all things.’ Constantius, a man of mild and gentle temper,
+away in distant Britain and already smitten by disease, acquiesced in
+the nominations of his self-seeking partner; but the offspring and the
+soldiers of Constantius rebelled against an arrangement so one-sided
+and inequitable. Constantine, the brave young son of Constantius by his
+concubine Helena, now in his thirty-second year, was at Nicomedia in
+Bithynia when Diocletian’s abdication threw the direction of the affairs
+of the Imperial partnership into the hands of Galerius, who viewed
+him with no friendly eye, and would fain have kept him in honourable
+captivity in Asia. Repeated letters from his colleague Constantius
+at length wrung from him the required permission for the young man’s
+departure, and Constantine, according to a well-known story, starting
+on the long journey across Thrace by the Danube and the Rhine, caused
+the horses at the first few Imperial post-stations to be hamstrung, in
+order to prevent any courier from overtaking him with a revocation of
+the order. He reached York in safety; he made a successful campaign in
+Caledonia under his father’s auspices, and when that father returned to
+York to die, the legionaries, led by a Teutonic chief Crocus, king of the
+Alamanni, who held high command among them, insisted with one voice, that
+the diadem and the purple of the deceased Emperor should adorn his noble
+son, and that whatever the new-fangled constitution of Diocletian might
+prescribe, his title should be not Caesar but Augustus. Of the myriads
+of travellers who hurry to and fro through the magnificent railway
+station of York, how few find time to visit the admirable museum of Roman
+antiquities which is within a few hundred yards of the station, to gaze
+upon the ‘multangular tower’ with its courses of square Roman bricks,
+and in thought to retrace the history of York, Eoforwic, Eboracum, up to
+that day when the shouting soldiery, enraptured with the donative which
+each man had received, acclaimed the young hero ‘Constantine Imperator
+tu vincas.’ Strange is it to reflect that then what we call ‘the Eternal
+Eastern Question’ had no existence, since he who was to give his name to
+Constantinople was only setting his foot on the first rung of the ladder
+of power, and the Bosphorus, with the inconsiderable city of Byzantium on
+its shores, was still a silent and solitary water-way, while Eboracum was
+making and unmaking Emperors.
+
+[Sidenote: _Confusion and Civil War._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Suicide of Diocletian, 313._]
+
+By the elevation of Constantine to the Imperial dignity—an elevation
+which Galerius found himself eventually forced to consent to—the whole
+of Diocletian’s elaborate scheme of adoption, partnership and succession
+was shattered into atoms. The son of Maximian, Maxentius, followed the
+example of the son of Constantius and declared himself Augustus. Then
+old Maximian himself resumed the purple. In the year 308 there were six
+Emperors reigning at once, all styling themselves Augusti. Civil war in
+such conditions as these became the chronic condition of the Empire. The
+fable of the armed men who sprang from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus,
+and who fought with one another all the long summer’s day till only five
+were left, became a terrible truth. Such was the scene, such the utter
+failure of his grand project for promoting the peace of the Empire upon
+which the weary eyes of Diocletian closed, when, seeking refuge in death
+from the indignities which his young successors would have put upon him,
+he passed away from earth in his stately palace by the Adriatic, that
+palace which in the Middle Ages became a city[5].
+
+[Sidenote: _Constantine and Licinius, 315._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Constantine sole ruler, 323._]
+
+Of the dragon’s brood of combatants, at the time of the death of
+Diocletian only two were left, Constantine in the West and Licinius in
+the East. A short civil war was terminated by an apparent reconciliation
+between the two kinsmen (Licinius had married the sister of Constantine),
+and for eight years Licinius seemed to be satisfied with an arrangement
+which left him only the Eastern quarter of the Roman world, while the
+Gauls, Italy and Illyricum obeyed his more fortunate and far abler rival.
+But
+
+    ‘Never could true reconcilement grow,
+    Where wounds of deadly hate had pierced so deep.’
+
+The terrible loneliness of those who climb to the high places of power,
+their incapacity of tolerating a rival near the throne produced the usual
+results, and in 323 the second civil war broke out. Over land and sea
+the two mighty storm-clouds moved with terrific momentum against one
+another. Thirty-four thousand men fell on the hardly-contested field of
+Hadrianople. Crispus, the brave young son of Constantine, forced the
+passage of the Dardanelles and laid siege to Byzantium. The final battle
+was fought in September, 323, at Chrysopolis in Bithynia. Licinius was
+defeated after a most bloody encounter, in which 25,000 of his followers
+were slain. He implored and seemed to receive the pardon of his ‘Emperor
+and Master’ Constantine, but in the following year, on some suspicion of
+conspiracy, was put to death. Seventeen years after his being proclaimed
+at York, Constantine was sole and absolute master of the Roman world.
+
+[Sidenote: _Christianity and the Empire. (303-313.)_]
+
+The generation which witnessed the break-down of Diocletian’s scheme of
+adoptive succession witnessed also the final triumph of Christianity
+over its persecutors. By a somewhat undeserved fate, the name of the
+great restorer of the Empire has been handed down to after ages as that
+of the fiercest and most cruel of the oppressors of the Church. The
+persecution of the Christians which was commenced under Diocletian, and
+which continued, with some intermission, for the two last years of his
+reign and till the eighth year after his abdication, was not apparently
+originated by him, but by his younger and infinitely less statesmanlike
+colleague Galerius, who obtained the sanction indeed, but not the hearty
+co-operation of the aged and now valetudinarian Emperor. Still it must
+be admitted that Diocletian, though no fanatical adorer of the Olympian
+gods, believed in the necessity, on political grounds, of one great and
+relentless struggle for the suppression of the ‘new and illicit religion’
+which had grown up in the bosom of the Roman State, and which, as all men
+of clear insight perceived, must either conquer it or be conquered by it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Constantine’s attitude towards Christianity._]
+
+The same purely political instinct which made Diocletian persecute,
+led Constantine to foster and favour the Christian Church. Could we
+penetrate the secrets of the hearts of these two men, we might find
+that their religious convictions were not very dissimilar. Both were
+probably at heart Monotheists, both had that belief in a just and
+overruling Providence, which comes to most men who are in authority, and
+who, seeing the endless labour and contrivance which is needed in an
+earthly ruler to keep his world in any degree of order and peace, cannot
+easily persuade themselves that the whole of this fair system of things
+which we see around us came by chance. It may be doubted whether, in
+his heart of hearts, Diocletian went much beyond this position in his
+worship of Jupiter, or Constantine—at any rate till near the close of
+his life—in his belief in Christ. But the younger Emperor saw clearly
+that no fresh attempt to extirpate Christianity by force could succeed
+when Diocletian had failed; that the new religion made of its votaries
+not only better men, but, upon the whole, better citizens and more loyal
+subjects; that it possessed a force which, wisely guided, might be used
+for the preservation and not for the disruption of the Empire; above all,
+that the zealous partisanship of Christian bishops and priests would
+be a far more valuable ally to him in the desperate strife with his
+competitors—first with Maxentius and then with Licinius—than the languid
+half-hearted acquiescence of the Pagans in the religion which was a
+fashion rather than a faith, handed down to them from their forefathers.
+
+Thus, then, the alliance of Constantine with the Christian Church was
+formed, that alliance of which the imposing Council of Nicaea, consisting
+of 318 bishops, presided over by the great Augustus himself, glorious
+in purple and gold, was the most conspicuous seal and symbol. But though
+Constantine fostered, and, if I may so say, petted the Christian Church,
+he did not bring about that complete and intimate union of the State and
+the Church which was to be the distinguishing mark of the later, and
+pre-eminently of the Eastern Empire. Christian ideas indeed coloured
+much of his legislation. An edict was passed for the observance of ‘the
+Saviour’s day, the day of Light and of the Sun;’ and the soldiers, even
+those who did not profess Christianity, were enjoined to meet on that day
+in some open space near the city in which they were quartered and to lift
+up their hands to heaven thanking God for past victories, and imploring
+Him long to preserve in safety and triumph their Emperor Constantine
+and his pious sons. Every attempt to compel Christians to be present
+at idolatrous sacrifices was rigorously forbidden. The more licentious
+of the heathen orgies were forcibly suppressed. Many idol temples were
+thrown open to the gaze of the vulgar, and some were stripped of their
+treasures and their revenues for the benefit of the Imperial Treasury.
+
+Still there was no formal renunciation of the worship of the gods of the
+Capitol—no formal recognition of Christianity as _the_ religion of the
+Empire. The temples, though in some cases robbed of their gold and silver
+ornaments, remained standing; nay, even in the new and Christian capital,
+in Constantinople itself, new temples were erected, of course not
+without the Emperor’s cognisance, to Rhea, to the Great Twin Brethren,
+to the Fortune of the New Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Religious policy of Constantine’s successors._]
+
+Two generations passed after the foundation of Constantinople, during
+which the relation of the Empire to the Christian Church was the central
+question of all politics. These were the years during which the strife
+between Athanasian and Arian was being waged in all its bitterness, and
+the influence of Constantius, the survivor of the sons of Constantine,
+and eventually the sole ruler of the Roman Empire, was thrown with
+passionate earnestness on the side of the Arians, on whose behalf he
+exerted a severity which sometimes amounted to actual persecution of
+their opponents. Then came the short and fruitless attempt of Julian
+to restore the worship of the old gods. After his death followed some
+further struggles with Arianism, which could again boast the protection
+of an Eastern Emperor[6]. All these events tended to bring the
+supreme civil power more and more deeply into the innermost circle of
+ecclesiastical politics. Men’s minds became familiarised with the idea of
+one supreme and triumphant form of the Christian faith, professed by the
+Emperor, inscribed on the forefront of the State, and rigorously imposed
+on all citizens as an essential condition of their citizenship. This
+consummation was reached under that Emperor whose fortunes I shall before
+long have to describe to you, under Theodosius, who proclaimed the final
+triumph of the Athanasian faith, commanded all his subjects to adhere
+to it, prohibited the meetings of heretics, destroyed the temples of the
+gods, and made orthodox Christianity, what it continued for more than a
+thousand years, the State religion of the Roman Empire.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE II.
+
+THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON.
+
+
+_Comparison of the Political and Social Condition of the Empire and its
+German Neighbours._
+
+
+§ 1. THE ROMAN.
+
+Before I proceed to describe the collision between the Roman Empire and
+its Northern neighbours, I wish to sketch, in rapid outline, the chief
+features of the political and social condition of these two worlds, so
+close to one another in geographical position, so far removed from one
+another in the stages of their respective development.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Imperial Majesty._]
+
+We saw something in the last lecture of the process by which the Roman
+Augustus had grown to be what he was, the man with the mightiest
+opportunities for good or for evil of any on the surface of our planet.
+Let us now look for a few minutes at the outward presentation of this
+greatness to the eyes of his subjects. If we enter the Imperial palace
+and pass the first veil which guards the ante-chamber of the sovereign
+we find ourselves at length before a second veil, in front of which
+are watching thirty _Silentiarii_ in brightly burnished helmet and
+breastplate, defending the ‘Silence’ of the innermost sanctuary from any
+rude intrusion. Without the favour of some ‘illustrious’ functionary
+there would be for us but little hope of entrance into that august
+seclusion: but we who have travelled back over fifteen centuries of time
+can push aside the spectral _Silentiarius_ who would forbid our entrance,
+and can gaze, without the humiliating ceremony of prostration (exacted
+from all his contemporary subjects), upon the face and figure of the
+dread Augustus. He has perhaps just returned from the amphitheatre, and
+wears therefore the full robes of royalty in which he displays himself on
+state occasions to his subjects. On his head is the diadem, a broad white
+band studded with two rows of pearls, and with an emerald or a carbuncle
+blazing in the centre. Jewelled ear-rings hang down on either side of his
+face. Over his shoulders is hung a purple robe, richly embroidered with
+gold, similar to the _vestis picta_ which a conquering general used to
+wear in old times when he was drawn in triumph to the Capitol. The use of
+that purple colour is now jealously reserved to the Emperor himself, the
+members of the Imperial family, the Consuls, and a few of the most highly
+placed officers of state. For any ordinary subject to wear it would be
+an act of _laesa majestas_ (high treason). More than once has a Roman
+citizen lost his life, simply because a purple robe has been found in his
+possession. Upon his feet the Emperor wears sandals of the same purple
+dye, and these also are richly studded with jewels.
+
+In the midst of all this pomp, though sleek eunuchs and brilliantly
+dressed pages are moving obsequiously through the chamber, eager to
+anticipate the slightest wish of their master, the Lord of the Universe
+does not present the outward show of happiness. There is a look of
+weariness and anxiety in his face, dark lines under his eyes; languor and
+satiety in the very tones of his voice. Though there are some exceptions
+to the rule, the Augustus, since the changes introduced by Diocletian,
+leads generally an indoor life, unfavourable to health. He does not take
+those long and varied journeys which filled up the life of Hadrian: he
+does not, except in dire necessity, march at the head of his troops like
+Trajan: he does not even drive chariots and contend for prizes in the
+theatre like Nero. He has now to keep himself aloof from his subjects
+in dignified seclusion: his chief business in life is to be worshipped:
+and the life of an idol must, as it seems to us, be always a tedious
+life. The one thing that varies the monotony of the slowly-pacing days
+is fear—that fear which, even under this new and more settled order of
+things, no Emperor can wholly banish from his mind—that in some camp of
+misty Britain, or by the mob of some Syrian city, a rival Augustus may
+be suddenly acclaimed, and that it may be necessary to struggle not for
+dominion only but for bare life against the desperate antagonist.
+
+[Sidenote: _Deification of the Emperor._]
+
+The being who dwelt in this stately seclusion was not only raised to the
+ranks of the gods after his death (‘_Divus_’ being the regular official
+prefix of the name of a deceased Emperor): he was occasionally even
+addressed as ‘_Deus Noster_,’ ‘our God,’ during his life. ‘_Dominus
+Noster_,’ ‘our Lord’ or ‘our Master,’ was, however, his more usual
+title, this appellation which the modesty of Augustus had waived (since,
+as he said, it implied that those who used it were his slaves) having
+been freely accepted, and then jealously claimed, by his successors of
+the Lower Empire. Everything belonging to the Emperor was habitually,
+and without any trace of irony, spoken of as ‘Sacred.’ The ‘sacred
+bedchamber’ meant the Emperor’s bedroom: the ‘sacred largesses,’ the
+Imperial subscription-list. ‘Our Mildness,’ ‘our Tranquillity,’ ‘our
+Clemency,’ are the terms which the Emperors generally use when they
+are speaking of themselves, though occasionally we find an Emperor
+soaring even to higher regions of august self-contemplation and speaking
+of himself as ‘my Eternity[7].’ This reverential mode of speaking of
+the Emperor’s dignity by no means disappeared with the adoption of
+Christianity. A writer on military affairs, who was probably contemporary
+with Theodosius[8], says of the oath taken by the army: ‘The soldiers
+swear by God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, and by the Majesty of
+the Emperor, which, according to the will of God, is to be loved and
+worshipped by the human race. For when the Emperor has received the name
+of Augustus, faithful devotion is to be rendered, life-long service is
+to be paid, to him as to God present in a human body[9]. For that man,
+whether soldier or civilian, serves God who faithfully loves him who
+reigns by God’s ordinance.’
+
+[Sidenote: _The Imperial Consistory._]
+
+In one of the apartments of the palace was assembled the _Consistory_ of
+the Emperor, a body somewhat resembling our Privy Council, and consisting
+of all the highest officials of the State. From this Consistory now went
+forth all laws, addressed in the Emperor’s name to some great functionary
+charged to see to their execution. Here, too, were announced the names
+of those persons whom the Emperor nominated to the highest places in the
+civil and military service. All this legislative and administrative work,
+which in the days of the Republic had required the concurrence of the
+Senate and People of Rome, and a large share of which had been left even
+by Augustus and Tiberius to the Senate, was now done by the mere _fiat_
+of the Emperor; and only slight traces of even a theoretical right of
+confirmation by the Senate, none at all of such a right of confirmation
+by the People, seem to have been preserved.
+
+[Sidenote: _Three classes in the Imperial hierarchy._]
+
+The officials, civil and military, by whom the work of ruling the vast
+Roman Empire was carried on, were divided into three great classes:—
+
+1. The _Illustres_, nearly corresponding to our Cabinet Ministers and
+Commander-in-Chief.
+
+2. The _Spectabiles_, whose rank was not unlike that of our Privy
+Councillors, and who included most of the governors of provinces and
+military officers of rank.
+
+3. The _Clarissimi_. This title was given to all Senators, and was also
+shared by some of the governors of provinces of inferior rank, and
+subordinate commissioned officers.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Notitia._]
+
+The various degrees and orders of this great official hierarchy were
+accurately described in a treatise called the _Notitia Utriusque
+Imperii_, which, there is some reason to think, was written up by
+each Emperor afresh on his accession to the throne. This document is
+illustrated by somewhat grotesque pictures, emblematic of the contents
+of the various chapters, which may have been drawn by the unskilful
+fingers of the Imperial scribe. The copies of the _Notitia_ which we
+possess describe the state of things existing about the beginning of the
+fifth century, and bring before us in a wonderful manner the various
+and skilfully contrived channels by which, in theory at least, the
+great Imperial power flowed down to, and was brought in contact with,
+the meanest of its subjects. The first chapter enumerates all the chief
+officers of the Eastern Empire. The second takes up the office of the
+PRAETORIAN PREFECT, greatest of all the Illustres, a man who, after his
+office had undergone great mutations, had at length become, so to speak,
+the Grand Vizier of the Emperor, his _alter ego_ and vicegerent, the
+official who took as much as possible of the drudgery of ruling off the
+shoulders of a monarch, who, if ill-disposed, wanted to take his fill of
+luxury and sensual enjoyment, or if earnest to perform the duties of his
+station, was generally busy on the frontier, warring with the barbarians.
+
+Though the scheme of Diocletian for ‘adoptive succession, and
+partnership’ had broken down, his skilful division of the vast spaces of
+the Empire still endured, and each one of the four Prefectures founded by
+him was still under the rule of its own special Praetorian Prefect. This
+second chapter, then, of the _Notitia_ describes the various provincial
+governors, who are, in its phrase, ‘under the disposition’ of the
+Illustrious Praetorian Prefect of the East. Then follows an enumeration
+of the official staff—the registrars, the shorthand-writers, the
+process-servers, the beadles, the gaolers who were employed in the court
+of the Praetorian Prefect, himself not merely a great Minister of State,
+but also the highest Judge of Appeal, Premier, and Lord Chancellor in one.
+
+[Sidenote: _Magister Militiae._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Probable size of the Imperial army._]
+
+Another chapter of the _Notitia_ gives the emblems of the dignity of
+the Illustrious MASTER OF THE SOLDIERY in the East, and enumerates
+the various legions which were under his disposition. And here we are
+brought face to face with the interesting question, What was the size
+of the Roman army at the time when its greatest struggle with the
+barbarians began? Unfortunately the _Notitia_, though it gives us much
+detailed information as to the disposition of various bodies of infantry
+and cavalry, does not enable us to give a definite answer to this
+question; and unfortunately also an impression has been produced, one
+can hardly tell how, that by this time the Legion, the well-known unit
+of computation in the Roman army, had been formally reduced from its old
+strength of 6100 men to about 1000. Of course this suggestion throws
+all calculations as to the size of the army, derived from the number of
+legions contained in it, into confusion. But as no proof of this formal
+reduction of the legion has yet been offered, I prefer to take it at its
+old valuation: and so doing, I come to the conclusion that the Roman army
+at the end of the fourth century consisted on paper of at least 950,000
+men[10]. To deduce from this its actual effective strength can be only
+a matter of conjecture; but my conjecture would be that fully one-half
+of the above number, or 475,000 men, were at that time serving under the
+banners of the Empire[11].
+
+[Sidenote: _Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi._]
+
+If I am not wearying you, we will turn over a few more pages of this
+wonderful handbook, which I have often in my own mind compared to a
+_Whitaker’s Almanack_ and an _Army List_ for the fifth century after
+Christ, bound up together. Even that comparison hardly does justice to
+the _Notitia_. I doubt if we have any book which in our own country shows
+so clearly and so concisely the relations of the various departments of
+our State to one another (for instance, of the Exchequer to the Treasury,
+or of the Privy Council to the Poor Law Board) as this treatise shows
+the functions of the great officers of the Roman State and the classes
+of civil servants over whom they bore sway. After the Master of the
+Soldiery, that is, the Commander-in-Chief, we come to the Illustrious
+Grand Chamberlain, or, as he was called in the high-flown language of
+the Court, the SUPERINTENDENT OF THE SACRED CUBICLE. Our MSS. of the
+_Notitia_ are defective in the chapters relating to this magnificent
+personage, but we know from other sources that he ruled over an army of
+pages, scullions, keepers of the wardrobe, grooms of the bedchamber, and
+the like, and that the thirty gleaming _Silentiarii_ who watched outside
+the purple veil took their orders from him.
+
+[Sidenote: _Magister Officiorum_.]
+
+The Illustrious MASTER OF THE OFFICES is next described. In a quaint
+picture are represented the emblems of his rank, a table with the
+likeness of the Emperor standing upon it, and underneath shields,
+spears, greaves and helmets. We learn from the text that the arsenals
+of the Empire, the Postal Service, the four great bureaux[12] which
+were responsible for the Imperial correspondence and for receiving and
+answering petitions, the swarm of King’s Messengers (as they would now
+be called) or _Agentes in Rebus_, who rode up and down through the
+provinces, executing the orders of the Sovereign, were all under the
+disposition of this hard-worked and useful functionary.
+
+[Sidenote: _Quaestor._]
+
+The Illustrious QUAESTOR was responsible for the preparation of the
+Emperor’s Edicts, and seems to have shared with the Master of the Offices
+the duty of replying to the humble petitions of his subjects. A bundle
+of these petitions and a box, which looks like a pillar post-office,
+inscribed ‘Leges Salutares,’ appear on his page of the _Notitia_ among
+the emblems of the Quaestor’s dignity.
+
+[Sidenote: _Comes Sacrarum Largitionum._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Comes Privatarum Rerum._]
+
+The Illustrious COUNT OF THE SACRED LARGESSES and COUNT OF THE
+PRIVATE DOMAINS were the two great financial ministers of the State.
+Theoretically the first might have been expected to discharge only the
+duties of a Grand Almoner, in supervising the Imperial Charities.
+Practically, however, he had to superintend the collection of revenue
+from Illyrian silver mines and Egyptian corn-fields, from the
+manufacturers of linen, and the traders in salt. The Count of the Private
+Domains similarly superintended the vast estates belonging to the Crown
+in the various provinces of the Empire, defended them from squatters,
+urged the claims of his sovereign to the land of a subject dying without
+natural heirs, and received the reports of the stud-masters who watched
+over the troops of horses reared for the Emperor in the plains of Thrace
+and Cappadocia. The pictures denoting the functions of these two officers
+are nearly alike, both representing money-chests, sacks fat with gold and
+silver, and great bowls filled with round masses of bullion.
+
+[Sidenote: _Merits and defects of the Imperial Bureaucracy._]
+
+Such is a very brief outline of the system of civil and military
+administration as arranged by Diocletian and Constantine. This
+Bureaucracy (I know no pure English word which expresses the idea)
+carried on the government of the Eastern Empire for more than a thousand
+years. It had great faults—it was grasping, repressive, too often
+corrupt. At the beginning of the fifth century, if we may believe a poet
+of the Opposition[13], an Eunuch, who by Imperial favour had climbed up
+into the high place of Praetorian Prefect, dared to open an auction mart
+in his private chamber for the actual sale of provincial governorships to
+the highest bidder. And even where there was not positive corruption,
+there can be little doubt that the rule of the Byzantine officials was
+generally impoverishing and exhausting to the provinces, paying but
+little heed to their just complaints, and bent on screwing out of them
+the uttermost farthing for the Emperor, if not for the officials’ own
+private benefit. Still the officialism of the Empire had some great
+merits, without which it could never have subsisted so long as it did.
+The regular gradation of offices, the scientific division of powers, the
+career opened by the civil service to intellect, irrespective of noble
+birth or warlike prowess—all these things made of the administrative
+hierarchy of the Roman Empire a great engine of civilisation in those dim
+mediaeval centuries, and one which contrasted favourably in many respects
+with the rough barbaric forces that were everywhere else struggling for
+supremacy. If the student wishes to know how it was that the Empire of
+Constantine, notwithstanding all its degeneracy, lasted on in the East
+for 1120 years, let him study that curious and interesting document, the
+_Notitia Imperii_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Social condition of the Empire._]
+
+Passing from the political, I will make a few remarks on the social state
+of the Empire in the fourth century after Christ. Our information on this
+subject is very imperfect. We have no authors who, like the comedians
+of Athens, or like Horace and Juvenal in Rome, enable us to reconstruct
+a picture of the manners and customs of those far-off times, almost as
+vivid as is furnished by the Miss Austens and the Anthony Trollopes of
+the nineteenth century. Still we have something. Ammianus Marcellinus,
+the great historian of Julian and Valentinian, possessed the eye and
+hand of a satirist; and St. Jerome, even in denouncing the vices of
+fashionable society in Rome, brings us into nearer acquaintance with its
+good as well as its evil qualities.
+
+[Sidenote: _Division between classes._]
+
+Taking a broad survey, we may say that the characteristic of Roman social
+life in the later Empire, was the gulf (a far wider and more bridgeless
+gulf than exists in our own day) between the very rich and the very
+poor. The Roman did not take naturally either to manufacturing or to
+retail shop-keeping. He was (perhaps I should rather say, he had been)
+essentially a warrior. The rich Roman was still lawyer, civil servant,
+money-lender, and land owner. The poor Roman was tiller of the soil—often
+under very hard conditions—or else ‘loafer’ (no other word will express
+my meaning) in the cities. What was true of the dweller in Rome was true
+also to some extent of the Romanised population of the provinces. Now,
+if we consider what these statements amount to, and if we consider also
+the invariable influence of slavery in crushing out the better class of
+free artisans, we shall see that we have here a society from which the
+middle class and the more independent portion of the lower class are
+perpetually tending to disappear; in other words, a society composed of
+the very rich and of the _employés_ of the State at one end, and of the
+proletariat[14] at the other, with only weak and insufficient padding
+between.
+
+[Sidenote: _Roman fortunes._]
+
+We have some interesting information as to the fortunes of wealthy
+Romans about the year 420, after the distress caused by the invasion
+of the barbarians had begun. In the first families in Rome it was not
+unusual for the master of the household to have an income of £160,000 a
+year, besides the produce of vineyards and corn-lands, which was worth
+quite £50,000 more[15]. Wealthy families of the second class were worth
+from £40,000 to £60,000 a year. A Senator named Probus, when his son
+was made Praetor about 423, spent £48,000 on the shows which it was
+still customary for that functionary to exhibit to the people. Some
+fifteen years before, ere Rome had yet been taken by the barbarians,
+Symmachus the orator, a man who was deemed to possess only a moderate
+fortune, had spent £80,000 on similar exhibitions; while Maximus, who
+was considered one of the very rich citizens of Rome, lavished £160,000
+upon the festivities, which, notwithstanding this prodigious expenditure,
+only lasted seven days. At this time the palace of every Roman nobleman
+had spacious baths, forum, hippodrome, fountains, temples (or churches)
+within its enclosure, so that a stranger visiting Rome cried out with
+enthusiasm
+
+    ‘Every house is a town, Rome holds a myriad of cities.’
+
+St. Jerome tells us that the devout lady Paula, who claimed descent on
+the paternal side from Agamemnon, and on the maternal from the Scipios,
+was possessed of vast wealth, and that the whole city of Nicopolis
+(founded by Augustus to commemorate the battle of Actium) belonged to her
+alone.
+
+[Sidenote: _Habits of wealthy Romans._]
+
+The men who owned these enormous fortunes seemed to Ammianus to be for
+the most part cold-hearted and effeminate dandies, unworthy of the
+great name of Rome, whose foremost citizens they were. A lofty chariot
+would be one man’s sign of distinction, another covered himself with a
+multitude of cloaks of finest silken texture, each one fastened round
+his neck by a jewelled clasp, and perpetually wriggled his body about
+or waved his hand in order to call the attention of the bystanders to
+the gay fringes of his robe or the figures of animals embroidered upon
+it in divers colours of needle-work. Others strutted along the street
+followed by a whole army of retainers, and when they entered the public
+baths attended by at least fifty slaves, at once began to shout out in a
+voice that was meant to strike awe into all humbler visitors, ‘Where are
+my people?’ A contemptuous toss of the head was all that they vouchsafed
+to an acquaintance; to the fawning flatterer who was hungering for their
+smile they would contemptuously offer a hand or a knee to kiss. But all
+this affectation of aristocratic _hauteur_ vanished when some woman of
+doubtful reputation drew near, or when news was brought to them of the
+arrival of some fresh horses or charioteers of extraordinary skill. The
+banquet was to these men a time of dull and solemn sensuality. When the
+panting slave placed on the table a fish or a turkey of unusual size,
+they would send for the scales and order it to be weighed, and then one
+of the crowd of hungry secretaries standing by would be called upon to
+record the prodigy on his tablets. Beyond this kind of employment for the
+pen, their ideas either of literature or of science hardly soared.
+
+[Sidenote: _The poorer citizens of Rome._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Bread distribution._]
+
+Thus empty and frivolous appeared to a contemporary satirist the lives of
+the Roman nobility. Of the lives of the poorer citizens he gives us fewer
+details, but we can see that for them as for their ancestors the interest
+of life was summed up in three words ‘_Panem et Circenses_’—bread and
+circus-shows. By a well-understood bargain between the Roman mob and
+the Roman Emperor—a bargain which lasted through all the centuries from
+Julius to Augustulus—he was bound to provide them with at least food
+enough to keep them from starving, and with a proper amount of excitement
+in the form of games, chariot races, and fights of gladiators and
+wild beasts; and if he failed in this, the first duty of a ruler, his
+diadem and his life were both forfeit. The elaborate provisions of the
+Theodosian code enable us to understand how the duty of feeding the mob
+was performed. We see the householders of Rome seated on broad flights
+of stairs throughout the fourteen regions of the City, and receiving
+from the slaves who obeyed the orders of the Superintendent of Supply
+(_Praefectus Annonae_) their loaves of fine wheaten flour, each weighing
+about a pound and a half[16], and in addition, a certain quantity of oil.
+
+[Sidenote: _Games._]
+
+And then as to the games. The history of Ammianus and the letters of
+Cassiodorus show us these same unemployed citizens flocking to the
+stately Colosseum, or the spacious Hippodrome, and shouting themselves
+hoarse with the name of some favourite gladiator or charioteer. The
+chariot races especially, stirred the people to a frenzy of excitement,
+surpassing that of a contested election or an Irish faction-fight. The
+two colours, blue and green, flaunted by one set of charioteers or the
+other, stirred the citizens both of Rome and Constantinople to the very
+madness of triumph or disappointment. ‘The green charioteer flashes by:
+part of the people is in despair. The blue gets ahead: a larger part
+of the city is in misery. They cheer frantically when they have gained
+nothing: they are cut to the heart when they have received no loss: and
+they plunge with as much eagerness into these empty contests as if the
+whole welfare of the imperilled fatherland was at stake[17].’
+
+[Sidenote: _Slave-system._]
+
+In such a round of ignoble excitements, in such an attitude of
+dishonourable dependence on the feeding power of the State—pauperism
+disguised under high-sounding names—the mob of Rome and of
+Constantinople, apparently also of Antioch and Alexandria, spent their
+lazy lives. Meanwhile the agricultural population and the inhabitants of
+the smaller provincial towns were daily sinking lower into the gulf of
+hopeless poverty, toiling, yet scarce able with all their labour to keep
+famine from their doors. At the base of the social pyramid were of course
+to be found the Slaves, those unhappy beings who, shut up at night in the
+huge and gloomy _ergastula_ (slave-barracks), worked all day under the
+hot Italian sun, cultivating the land of some wealthy master, unknown,
+unseen, only represented by a hard, relentless _villicus_ (steward),
+himself a slave, but delighting to make the more miserable creatures
+under him feel his power. These were the kind of establishments which, a
+hundred years or more before the Republic fell, had replaced the happy
+home-steads of the Latin or Sabine farmer: and it was the sight of this
+spreading plague-spot of servile agriculture which in the first century
+of the Christian era forced from Pliny the well-known cry of lamentation,
+‘Large estates have been the ruin of Italy and are now causing the ruin
+of the provinces[18].’ Yet perhaps in the fifth century the slave was not
+the most miserable of the rural inhabitants. Christianity had already
+introduced some betterment into his condition. The _ergastulum_ was
+prohibited by law, if we may not think that it had entirely disappeared
+in fact: and decrees were beginning to be issued, earnestly protesting
+against that breaking up of families which is one of the most cruel
+characteristics of predial slavery[19]. And at any rate the slave, in all
+ordinary circumstances, was safe from death by starvation, a security
+which was not always enjoyed by his social superiors.
+
+[Sidenote: _Coloni._]
+
+Next above the slave, and often hardly to be distinguished from him,
+was the _colonus_ or serf, a man over whom his lord had no power of
+life and death, but who was bound—as were his children after him—to
+cultivate a particular piece of ground for the owner, at a rent which
+seems to have been practically unchanged from generation to generation.
+He had therefore no power of changing his condition nor of choosing a
+better landlord, but on the other hand he had practically a kind of
+tenant-right which he transmitted, with the corresponding liability,
+to his children. This class of compulsory cultivators seems to have
+sprung out of freeholders who were weighed down by hopeless debt, and
+who by process of law became _coloni_ of their creditors[20]; but it
+was probably enormously increased during the troubles of the third and
+fourth centuries, when men finding freedom with starvation a burden too
+heavy to be borne, voluntarily lowered their condition, and becoming
+_coloni_ accepted the helping but degrading hand of a _dominus_. In times
+of peace and plenty the condition of a _colonus_, notwithstanding his
+bounded horizon and his depressing round of unvarying toil, was perhaps
+not altogether to be pitied: but war, famine, and pestilence must have
+terribly reduced his narrow margin of profit.
+
+[Sidenote: _Curiales._]
+
+Of all classes of the community, however, none seem to me so truly to
+be commiserated as the _curiales_, the vestrymen and town-councillors
+of the provinces. These were the descendants of the men by whom the
+local self-government of the Empire had formerly been carried on, the
+representatives of a once flourishing and happy middle class. Their
+ancestors had been men of importance in their little world, and the
+letters D E C (for Decurio, or town-councillor) carved on their tombs had
+shown their right to a coveted dignity. But as they bore rule in their
+little commonwealth, so they were responsible for its contributions to
+the public revenue; and as the Empire grew older, as it became divided,
+as there came to be three or four Imperial Courts to support instead of
+one, and as heavier sums had to be paid to buy off or to fight off the
+barbarians, so the pressure of the tax-gatherer became more severe, while
+the privileges of the town-councillor became more shadowy. At last the
+truth was openly confessed: the _curialis_ was a mere bond-slave of the
+Empire, bound to fulfil his ‘curial obligations,’ that is, to bear an
+ever-increasing burden of local rates and imperial taxes, transmitting
+this sad necessity to his children, compelled if the land next to him
+fell out of cultivation to take it up and cultivate it for the benefit of
+the Imperial Treasury, forbidden to become a priest or even a slave, lest
+by either process he might escape from his bondage to the _curia_. One or
+two ways of escape from this bitter servitude were indeed left open, but
+they were narrow, thorny, and difficult. Practically the chief liberator
+of the _curialis_ and his kindest friend was Death.
+
+The sketch which I have thus offered you of the social condition of the
+Empire in the fourth century is certainly a gloomy one. Like all such
+sketches it can only be approximately true. Doubtless there were at Rome
+many nobles unlike the effeminate dandies whom Ammianus has described
+to us: doubtless there was in the provinces many a cultivator of the
+soil, whether _colonus_ or _curialis_, who glided happily enough through
+life, not crushed by the burdens and the despairs which seem to us so
+terrible. Yes: though I cannot accept the proposition that the sum of
+human happiness is a constant quantity throughout the centuries, I doubt
+not that in the saddest periods of the history of the world there has
+been more individual happiness, and in the happiest of such periods more
+individual suffering, than the historian pourtrays to us. But upon the
+whole we may confidently say that the Roman World, at the time when the
+barbarian invasion began in earnest, was not happy or flourishing. Large
+tracts of land within the _Limes Imperii_ were going out of cultivation,
+population both in Italy and the provinces was dwindling, and I think
+Hope was unusually absent from the hearts and minds of men. In short, the
+Empire was sinking under the weight of its official administration, even
+as I fear that after ages will see that many fair states of Europe are
+now sinking under the weight of the terrible armaments with which mutual
+suspicion has led them to array themselves.
+
+
+§ 2. THE TEUTON.
+
+From the highly-developed life of the Empire, with its signs of
+exhaustion and decay, we turn to that of our German forefathers and
+their kindred—a life rough, untrained, undisciplined, but already
+utterly different from that of mere savages, and bearing within it the
+seeds of many noble institutions. The German peoples (to speak of them
+in the language of Rome), the _Deutsche_ (as they have in more recent
+times called themselves), or the Teutonic[21] race (which is the term
+now generally used in contrast to Celts and Slaves), occupied, broadly
+speaking, the territory from the Rhine to the Danube, and along the
+northern shore of the Danube to the Black Sea. There were settlements,
+however, of the Teutons on the west of the Rhine, and in the east of
+Europe Sclavonic nations were mingled with Teutons in a confusion which
+it is now impossible to disentangle. Of their ethnological relations,
+however, I shall have a little more to say in my next lecture. At present
+my object is to give a slight sketch of the inner life of these Teutonic
+peoples, in its social and political aspects.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Germans at the end of the first century after Christ not
+a nomadic people._]
+
+The first detailed information that we possess as to the customs of
+the Germans is given us by Julius Caesar, who describes the state of
+things which prevailed about 55 years before Christ. Our next and by
+far our fullest information comes from Tacitus, who wrote his priceless
+monograph, the _Germania_, in 98 A.D., that is, about a century and a
+half after Caesar. During that interval it is clear that an important
+change had come over the habits of the Germans. From being a pastoral
+people, living chiefly on milk and cheese and the flesh of their cattle,
+they had become, to a large extent, tillers of the soil. They still
+kept their flocks and herds, and wealth among them was still measured
+chiefly by these possessions; but bread was now a staple article of
+food, and perhaps that upon which the slaves and the poorer freemen
+chiefly subsisted. This change in diet involved a necessary change in
+the habits of the people. The shepherd and the herdsman are essentially
+wanderers; the varied needs of their dumb companions in winter and
+summer, make frequent change of abode not only easy but profitable,
+while the agriculturist of course must remain stationary to watch the
+growth of the corn which he has sown. It seems probable that Caesar’s
+conquest of Gaul, Tiberius’s victories in Switzerland and the Tyrol,
+and the strong restraining hand of Augustus upon all the tribes beyond
+the Rhine and the Danube, were partly the cause of this change in the
+habits of the Germans. Cooped within narrower limits, and no longer able
+to overrun at their pleasure the fair lands of Gaul and Pannonia, they
+betook themselves of necessity to a more careful cultivation of their
+restricted territory, and practised the arts of a rude husbandry—rude
+indeed, but incomparably less wasteful of the earth’s resources than the
+nomadic life of the grazier and the sheep-master. In its turn this change
+in their habits reacted on their character. It made the maintenance of
+peace between them and the Empire possible for two or three generations
+at a time, and it so far fixed the bounds of the habitations of the
+Germanic peoples themselves, that the map of Germany which is drawn to
+illustrate the text of Tacitus will serve, without many changes, for the
+distribution of the tribes in the time of Constantine.
+
+[Sidenote: _A German village-settlement._]
+
+Let us try to understand what the life of these German farmers looked
+like in a time of peace during the second and third centuries of the
+Christian era. Their settlements, like those of a Canadian backwoodsman,
+were for the most part clearings in the midst of ‘the forest primeval.’
+Here, then, with a girdle of woodland round them, was planted the cluster
+of scattered houses which made up the village. The Romans called it a
+_vicus_, the modern Germans call it a _dorf_ (a word akin to our own
+_thorp_); our Saxon and Anglian ancestors called it sometimes a _ton_[22]
+(town), sometimes a _ham_[23]; while their Danish invaders gave to the
+same kind of settlement the name of a _by_ or a _wick_[24]. The houses
+in the German village were built of timber, and if Tacitus is correct in
+saying that tiles were unknown among them, we must, I suppose, conclude
+that the straw thatches which are still common in rural England were
+the roofs chiefly used by our German ancestors. One feature of a German
+village which struck the eye of a Roman observer, and in which it
+probably differed even from a Celtic town, was that there were in it no
+rows of contiguous houses. Each dwelling, whether large or small, stood
+surrounded by its own plot of ground, and thus fires were less dangerous
+than where the lines of buildings were continuous. The description of
+such a _vicus_ given by Tacitus reminds one of a Swiss village, say
+Meyringen, Grindelwald, or Altdorf, if we can imagine all the changes
+which have been wrought therein by the tide of summer tourists done away.
+And the great belt of woodland which seems always to have surrounded the
+German _vicus_, and which was to a certain extent the common property
+of the villagers, who possessed rights of collecting fuel, and probably
+also of hunting game in these encircling forests, reminds me of several
+modern German villages which I have seen, but especially of Schwalbach,
+which is environed by just such a belt of trees, chiefly beech-trees. In
+this beautiful green girdle, which is from one to two miles in depth,
+the poor of the village are still employed during the winter in felling
+and carrying wood for the benefit of the _Gemeinde_, and the wages paid
+to them for this work seem to supply the place of what is called with us
+‘out-door relief.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Distinction of classes in a German village._]
+
+In these little sequestered villages the bulk of the German warriors had
+their homes. There was a distinction of classes among them. Then, as
+now, the German looked upon noble birth with reverence, and probably in
+every village there were at least one or two heads of families called
+noble, and believed to be sprung in far-distant ages from the seed of
+gods. But the largest and most important class was that of the men,
+free but not noble[25], who took part in all public assemblies, and who
+formed the bone and muscle of the national army, but who, though proud
+and independent, did not look upon themselves as eligible for any of
+the highest places in the State. Among these, however, there were all
+sorts of gradations of rank, depending partly on personal qualities,
+but largely also on their relative wealth. The chief outward sign of
+this wealth was cattle, so much so that the earliest translator of
+the New Testament into a Teutonic tongue coined a word equivalent to
+‘cattle-hoarder[26],’ when he wished to warn his readers against the
+‘mammon of unrighteousness.’ But slaves also were possessed, probably
+in considerable numbers, by wealthy German villagers, though they were
+employed almost entirely in the labour of the farm and the pasture, all
+domestic work being as a rule performed by the female members of even the
+rich German family. Half-naked, and far from clean, the children of the
+master and of the slave sprawled about together on the floor of either
+home, until the years of manhood were reached, when it was deemed fitting
+that some distinctive dress should show the difference of their rank. But
+it was in these smoky huts, on these dirty floors, and doubtless also
+in many a long day’s chase along with the slave-boys in the encircling
+forest, that the fair limbs of the young German warriors grew to that
+size and that sinewy stateliness which, as Tacitus admits, were the
+admiration and the terror of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Land-system of the Germans._]
+
+[27]The agriculture of these Teutonic tribes was conducted in a manner
+which necessarily kept it in a backward and primitive state. Apparently
+the Germans had learnt the lesson that frequent grain-crops exhaust the
+fertility of the soil. Anything like a scientific system of manuring, in
+order to repair that exhausted fertility, was of course yet undiscovered;
+but a rude provision for fallows seems to have been generally made.
+Periodically, the whole population of the village went forth into the
+adjacent country and decided upon the portion of pasture or moorland
+which was to be broken up by the plough in order to replace the portion
+of arable land which had earned the right to repose. The new corn-land
+thus created was divided among the villagers, not equally, but according
+to their rank and wealth, chiefly because rank and wealth implied a
+proportionate power of cultivation[28]. While the poor freeman, who was
+only just above the rank of a slave, could bring only his own arms and
+those of his sons to till the little patch of ground which was allotted
+to him, his wealthy neighbour, who had slaves and horses and herds in
+abundance, could cultivate, and therefore might insist upon having
+allotted to him, a much larger part of the new corn-land. Thus, by this
+arrangement, as by so many of those which belong to a more complicated
+civilisation, ‘to him that had, more was given, so that he had
+abundance.’ After all, every German village had still so much land at its
+disposal, that few heartburnings seem to have been caused on the score of
+too scanty allotment[29]. And in order to prevent the complaint that one
+villager received a more fertile or a sunnier portion than another, the
+lots periodically[30], perhaps even annually, changed hands, though still
+on the same principle of unequal division.
+
+At first sight, such a system as this appears communistic, but on
+reflexion we see that the right of property, and the inequalities which
+flow from the acknowledgment of that right, are fully recognised by it.
+Only I think we must admit—and here the words both of Caesar[31] and
+Tacitus seem to justify our conclusion—that there was in the minds of
+the rough German politicians of the first century before and the first
+century after Christ, a conviction, or perhaps rather an instinct, that
+the land, though still cheap and not much more an object of desire than
+water or air, was, like water and air, essential to the nation’s life;
+and that, though cottages and the surrounding gardens were the subject
+of absolute property, and descended from father to son without question,
+it was safer for the community by frequent changes to prevent the right
+of any one of its members to a given space of corn-land or meadow from
+becoming firm and immovable.
+
+How these open fields were probably divided into strips, or ‘yard-lands’;
+how the villagers sometimes helped one another in the necessary
+ploughing; how some traces of this peculiar kind of joint occupation
+existed through the Middle Ages, and were still manifest in our own
+country even in the early part of this century, has been set forth with
+much fulness of detail by my friend Mr. Seebohm, in his interesting book,
+_The English Village Community_[32].
+
+[Sidenote: _Indolence of the Germans._]
+
+Whatever other advantages this system might possess, it was not likely
+to encourage highly-developed agriculture. But indeed, from the account
+given by Tacitus, which is generally confirmed by later historians,
+it is clear that the German freemen, though far from being the squalid
+savages that they have been sometimes represented, were not industrious
+tillers of the soil. War, the chase, the sword-dance, and the throw of
+the dice-box were their chief excitements, and when they were not excited
+they were torpid and lethargic. Long and heavy potations, sometimes
+continued for a day and night together, sometimes interrupted by a bloody
+brawl, were followed by equally long and heavy slumbers. Whether they
+went to the banquet or to market they always wore arms, a sure sign of
+a low state of civilisation; and the gravest affairs were all discussed
+amid copious draughts of beer, or, if the disputants dwelt near the
+Rhine or the Danube, of wine from the land of the Romans. In short,
+while we can trace in the Teuton of the first Christian centuries some
+noble qualities—truth, courage, chastity—we also discover the marks
+of some deep inbred vices, which beset him till this day, especially
+drunkenness and the love of gambling; and we do _not_ find even the
+germs of that capacity for steady and continuous toil which, since they
+became Christian and civilised, has been the glory of the German, the
+Anglo-Saxon, and the Scandinavian.
+
+[Sidenote: _How the village community developed into the state._]
+
+Such, then, in brief outline, seems to have been the ordinary life of a
+German village. The political institutions of the Teutonic races—which
+are what we are chiefly now concerned with—depended on the manner and
+extent of the consolidation of these villages into larger and more
+powerful communities. If we go up to some high table-land we shall see
+little brooks and streams running off from it in all directions, some
+of which will perhaps eventually form part of a great and world-famous
+river, while others will find their way unnoticed to the sea. In studying
+the early history of the Germanic tribes, we stand on such a table-land.
+The future fortunes of Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Angles,
+Saxons, are involved in the village politics of these much-drinking,
+freely-fighting German boors; but there are also involved the obscure
+destinies of countless little tribes, whose uncouth names survive only in
+the pages of Tacitus or Jordanes, and are in fact forgotten by men.
+
+[Sidenote: _Manifoldness of German political life._]
+
+The characteristic of German polity, as much in the first century after
+Christ as in the sixteenth, as much in the time of Arminius as in that
+of Charles V, was its infinite diversity. There were tribes that knew
+no king, tribes that had kings with very limited powers, tribes that
+submitted to despotism—or something very like it—on the part of their
+kings, and tribes that even endured to have such authority over them
+exercised by a woman. And the chief—I will not say the only—cause of this
+diversity seems to have been the relative greatness or littleness of the
+clusters into which the village communities ultimately coalesced; and,
+closely connected herewith, the question whether the organism which was
+thus finally formed entertained widely extended schemes of aggression and
+foreign conquest, or whether it rested content with the defence of its
+own narrow borders against an invading foe.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Pagus, Gau, County or Canton._]
+
+Apparently every German village, at the time which we are now
+considering, had so far coalesced with some of its neighbours as to
+form what the Romans called a _pagus_. The extent of these _pagi_, and
+the number of _vici_ which united to form them, doubtless differed
+exceedingly, but as we find that in the time of Caesar[33] each Suevic
+_pagus_ sent forth 1000 armed men, an equal number remaining at home
+to till the ground, we may perhaps assume that the whole population of
+a _pagus_ generally consisted of about 10,000 persons, and that about
+ten _vici_, more or less, contributed to its formation. The choice of a
+Teutonic word to represent the term _pagus_, which, though convenient, is
+foreign, has not been found easy. Modern German scholars have generally
+adopted the word _Gau_, which was extensively used in the Middle Ages,
+though it is admitted that this does not precisely correspond to the
+_pagus_, but was often of somewhat smaller extent. As an English
+equivalent, _county_ or _shire_ comes the nearest, though both of them
+suggest ideas of a somewhat later time[34]. Whether such a translation
+be scientifically accurate or not[35] there can be little doubt that
+the feeling of local patriotism which still animates a Devonshire man
+or a Shropshire man when he speaks of his county, represents, at least
+as well as any other modern equivalent, the bond which bound a German
+warrior to his _pagus_. But, upon the whole, the Swiss _canton_, both in
+extent and in the manner of its growth, namely, by the coalition of the
+inhabitants of several neighbouring valleys, seems to me the most fitting
+representative of the _pagus_ of the _Germania_.
+
+Some German communities, perhaps, stopped in the process of consolidation
+at the canton, and never reached a further stage. They may have had
+traditions, and even religious rites, which kept alive the remembrance
+that they formed part of a larger tribe, that they were Suevi, or
+Mattiaci, or Chauci; but as far as political organisation went they were
+willing to be a _pagus_ and nothing more. If so, we may probably affirm
+that the tribes which contained many of these self-isolated cantons
+retained what has been called their ‘republican’ organisation, engaged
+but little in offensive war, were feeble in their resistance to Rome, and
+have left but little mark in history.
+
+[Sidenote: _Several Pagi might coalesce into a Civitas._]
+
+The first step towards national existence on a larger scale was taken
+when many _pagi_, bound together for the most part by the traditions
+of a common origin, organised themselves into what the Romans called a
+_civitas_, and in doing so generally, perhaps not always, elected for
+themselves a King. I do not think it is possible to find a term which
+exactly represents the stage of development which was thus reached, but
+the Saxon and Anglian kingdoms which were set up in our own land—Wessex,
+Mercia, Northumbria—will convey the true idea of it to our minds better
+than an elaborate description.
+
+[Sidenote: _Kingship and tendency towards unification went together._]
+
+Kingship and a tendency towards unification went hand in hand in the
+history of the German races. And not in that history alone: we may safely
+illustrate the tendency of the kingly office among the Germans by what we
+read in the Old Testament of the election of Saul. The Twelve Tribes of
+Israel, conscious that they were losing national unity and were in danger
+of being absorbed by the great monarchies on their borders, elected Saul
+to be their king, and his very first act of kingship was the deliverance
+of the outlying settlement of Jabesh-gilead from the destruction with
+which it was threatened by Nahash, King of the Ammonites. In our own
+days we have seen the aspirations of the Germans after national unity,
+aspirations which seemed for centuries doomed to hopeless failure, at
+length successful; and the visible token of their success and of that
+victory over their foes which unity made possible, was the crowning of
+the Emperor William by a host of kings, dukes and generals[36], in the
+palace of Versailles. We must not press the conclusion too far, since the
+history both of Rome and of the United States of America shows that a
+Republic can found a great dominion and defend the oneness of a nation:
+but for the German peoples, properly so called, I think we may safely say
+Monarchy has meant Unity, and Unity has meant Monarchy.
+
+[Sidenote: _Character of the kingly office among the Germans._]
+
+Far other, however, than the languid despot upon the sanctity of whose
+presence-chamber we intruded in the beginning of this lecture, was the
+King of the Goths or the Alamanni. Whether himself the son of a king or
+not, it was necessary that he should be of noble birth[37], and he had
+therefore probably been reared in a house, rude but somewhat larger than
+the ordinary freeman’s dwelling, built by the side of a fountain or near
+a sacred grove, at some little distance from the village settlement[38].
+But his life had been passed in the active exercises of war and the
+chase: and before he was chosen king of a great and important _civitas_
+he had probably given some proof of valour and ability, to cause him to
+be singled out from the ranks of nobles, each of whom was a chief in
+his own canton. Even after his election as king, his power was by no
+means unlimited. He might not bind nor strike any one of the free German
+warriors under him. Both in council and in war he had so much authority
+as his gifts of intellect, of daring, or of strength enabled him to
+acquire and retain, and not much more[39]. And when thus elected he had
+no absolute right to transmit his crown to his first-born, nor indeed to
+any of his sons. Doubtless the eldest son of a recently deceased king,
+if himself a man of capacity and valour, had always a good chance of
+being chosen to succeed him, but that was all. Gradually as the nation
+and its royal race grew accustomed to one another, and especially when
+the kings of that race had often led the nation to victory, the feeling
+grew stronger and stronger that out of that race only the nation ought to
+choose its kings. Thus were the Amals looked upon as the natural kingly
+race of the Ostrogoths, the Merwings of the Franks, the Asdings of the
+Vandals. But still there was no strict hereditary right, and the nation
+on the death of its king exercised its power of choice often in utter
+defiance of the rule of primogeniture.
+
+[Sidenote: _Meeting of the members of the Civitas._]
+
+The choice of the ruler, the decision as to war or peace, the enactment
+of a few very simple laws, these formed the chief business of the
+assembly of the _civitas_, which was called probably by some name like
+our own Anglo-Saxon Folc-gemot or Folcs-thing. Tacitus gives us a
+concise but vivid picture of the proceedings of one of these national
+assemblies. The _gemots-men_ indicated their deep-seated love of liberty
+by the unpunctuality of their attendance. Two days, and sometimes three,
+would elapse before a sufficient number had arrived to enable them to
+commence their proceedings. Then, when the crowd was in the humour for
+beginning, they sat down on the ground, all arrayed in their armour. The
+priests called for silence, and upon them rested the duty of maintaining
+order during the deliberations of the assembly[40]. Then the king or
+chief whose age, or eloquence, or noble birth gave him the right of
+pre-audience, addressed the assembly, and afterwards each in his turn
+according to the same blended qualifications. All the speakers sought
+rather to persuade than to command. An unpopular proposal was drowned in
+murmurs of disapproval, while eagerly brandished lances testified the
+applause and the agreement of the assembly.
+
+[Sidenote: _Judicial power of the popular assembly._]
+
+In these assemblies an accusation might be brought against a man who
+was suspected of treason against the nation’s life, and if the charge
+were pushed home, a capital sentence was pronounced upon the offender.
+Betrayers and deserters were hanged from a tree; the mere coward and
+fugitive, the man whom our Saxon forefathers would have called a
+_nithing_, was plunged deep in mud and covered with a hurdle to prevent
+his struggling back to life—a mode of punishment which reminds one of
+some scenes in Dante’s _Inferno_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Election of the King._]
+
+Probably, however, it was neither the legislative nor the judicial,
+but the elective aspect of these national councils which was the most
+important. The chiefs, or elders, or judges, or by whatever name they
+were called, the men whose business it was to administer a rude justice
+in the cantons and the villages, were chosen in the national council[41].
+And the highest act of the nation’s great assize was performed when the
+chief who was to repel the eagles of Rome, to lead the people across the
+frozen Danube, or to swoop upon the wealthy plains of Gaul, was solemnly
+chosen king. The clashing arms testified the nation’s assent to his
+nomination. Six strong warriors slowly upheaved the shield on which stood
+the newly-chosen one, and shouts of ‘Thiudans! Thiudans[42]!’ proclaimed
+to the echoing hills that the nation had once more a king. Thus was he
+singled out from his fellows who was to conduct the people’s quarrel with
+the far-off, mysterious, Imperator of Rome.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE III.
+
+THE COMING OF THE HUNS.
+
+
+Having thus given a cursory glance at the political and social condition
+of the Roman Empire and its German neighbours in the fourth century after
+Christ, let us now even more briefly survey the ethnological aspect of
+the barbarian world on its northern frontier at the same time.
+
+[Sidenote: _Celtic nations._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Slavonic nations._]
+
+Of the three great groups into which the non-Latin nations of Europe are
+at this day divided, Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic, the Teutonic alone
+here claims our especial attention. The Celtic nationality had been
+beaten down in ten years of battle by Julius Caesar, and its last hope of
+offering a successful resistance to Rome vanished when Suetonius Paulinus
+crossed the straits of Menai and put the Druids to the sword in their
+hitherto inviolable island of Mona. The Slavonic group of nations, which
+now fills Russia and Poland, forms half the population of Austria and is
+founding new kingdoms and principalities in what was lately Turkey in
+Europe, had not then come fully on the stage of history. The vague term
+Sarmatians, used by Roman geographers, is probably the best indication
+that we have of their presence in Europe, but few ethnological questions
+are harder than to define the ever-shifting boundary which separated
+them from their Teutonic neighbours. It is very possible that many of
+the barbarian hosts that warred on Rome may have consisted of Slavonic
+marauders led on by Teutonic chieftains: but just because the initiative
+at any rate belonged to the Teutons, and because the Slaves originated so
+few expeditions against the Empire, we may practically leave them out of
+the question and consider only the great Teutonic population which, all
+round the northern frontier of the Empire, from the mouth of the Rhine
+to the mouth of the Danube, faced the Masters of the Soldiery and their
+Legions.
+
+[Sidenote: _Tendency of the Teutonic nations to form confederacies._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Franks._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Alamanni._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Goths._]
+
+There had been a marked tendency during the third century after Christ in
+the barbarian nations to merge themselves into a few great confederacies,
+a tendency which possibly had something to do with the ill-success of the
+Roman arms during that period. A whole string of names of petty tribes
+on the lower Rhine, mentioned to us by Tacitus, disappears in order to
+form the nation of the _Franks_. In like manner the tribes which dwelt
+on the Main and the Neckar clustered together into the confederation of
+the _Alamanni_. On the Middle Danube the great nation of the Marcomanni,
+who once pressed Marcus Aurelius hard, disappeared, and no one nation
+of pre-eminent power arose in its place; but when we come towards the
+mouth of the Danube, to the countries which are now known as Roumania,
+Transylvania, and Bessarabia, we find them occupied by the great and
+powerful confederacy of the _Goths_. This race, of pure Teutonic origin,
+belonging to that which is called the Low-German family of peoples, and
+speaking a language much more akin to Lowland Scotch than to the modern
+German of Hanover, had migrated, probably in the second century of our
+era, from the district now known as East Prussia in the south-east corner
+of the Baltic. They had spread themselves along the northern shore of
+the Euxine, near the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester, and after a
+series of piratical expeditions by sea and marauding inroads by land upon
+the Eastern half of the Empire, had occupied without further opposition
+the Roman province of Dacia, constituted by Trajan in the early part of
+the second century. During the century before our narrative begins, they
+had been dwelling for the most part as friendly and peaceable neighbours
+of Rome. They had become gradually divided into two great groups of
+peoples, the Eastern and Western Goths, who eventually became known as
+the Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
+
+[Sidenote: _Associations connected with the term Gothic._]
+
+A hard and undeserved fate, as well as an unmerited glory, has come upon
+the possessors of the Gothic name. The glory is that of having given
+their name to the most solemn and impressive order of architecture that
+the world has ever seen. Men speak, and doubtless will ever continue to
+speak, of Gothic buildings, though the last traces of Gothic nationality
+had expired many centuries before a pointed arch was seen at Canterbury
+or Notre Dame. On the other hand the expression ‘What a Goth!’ as
+indicative of rudeness and lack of culture, is constantly used by the
+descendants of men who were centuries behind the Goths in refinement
+and civilisation, and who do not know that ‘What a Frank!’ or ‘What a
+Saxon!’ would be far nearer to historic truth. In point of fact, of all
+the Teutonic races none showed so early an appreciation of what was
+best in Roman civilisation as the Gothic, none showed a greater power
+of assimilating that civilisation, and none, had its career not been
+prematurely cut short, would more happily for Europe have blended the old
+with the new by uniting the culture and refinement of ‘Romania’ with the
+rough energy and freedom of ‘Barbaricum.’
+
+[Sidenote: _The Visigoths and the Empire._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Circa 350-376._]
+
+At the particular period which we have reached these remarks apply rather
+to the Visigoth than to the Ostrogoth. While the Ostrogoths, wandering
+wide over the vast plains of Southern Russia, were coming in contact
+with and subduing the dim Slavonic peoples of the interior, and thus
+building up for their great king, Hermanric, a vast but ill-consolidated
+empire which his flatterers—those of them at least who had some slight
+knowledge of classical history—compared to that of Alexander the Great,
+the Visigoths dwelling in Transylvania and Wallachia, and acknowledging
+perhaps in a general way the suzerainty of Hermanric, but under the
+especial rule of their own native chieftains who bore the subordinate
+title of _Judges_, were continually coming more and more under the
+influence of the Empire. Latin and Greek words were creeping into their
+language. The soldier talked of his pay as _mizdo_ (evidently the same
+word as the Greek μισθός), and of his rations as _anno_ (probably the
+Latin _annona_). The _alewa_ displayed to the grateful husbandman the
+fatness of the olive-tree, and he carried home its produce in a _sakkus_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Ulfilas and the Gothic Bible._]
+
+[Sidenote: _348-370._]
+
+Not only words like these and a knowledge of the arts of civilised
+life, but more far-reaching thoughts, those which overleap the grave
+and bind together in one all the generations of the family of God, were
+vibrating through the Visigothic brain. Ulfilas, the great Apostle of the
+Goths, himself a Goth, but resident in early manhood at Constantinople,
+began his missionary career in 341, and continued it for forty years,
+labouring during all that time by his tongue and pen at the conversion
+of his countrymen to Christianity. As an instrument in this great work
+he translated the Bible into Gothic, only omitting, according to the
+well-known story, the books of Samuel and Kings, ‘inasmuch as they
+contain the story of the wars, and the Gothic race was already fond
+enough of war, and needed rather a bit to hold it back from battle,
+than any spur to urge it thereunto.’ This Gothic Bible is a priceless
+possession for the philologist, being by far the earliest monument of
+any Teutonic language, and illustrating in a countless variety of ways,
+both the distant relationship which connects our family of languages with
+Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and the points at which the members of our
+own family, German, Danish, Dutch, English, have parted company one from
+another.
+
+[Sidenote: _Persecution of Gothic Christians. 370-375._]
+
+The success of Ulfilas in Christianising the Goths was so great that
+a persecution arose, under the stress of which many of his converts
+determined to leave their homes and seek shelter in the dominions of the
+great Christian Emperor. This happened about the year 348. The emigrants,
+with Ulfilas at their head, ‘a second Moses,’ as he was often styled
+by his contemporaries, crossed the Danube and founded a settlement in
+the country about Nicopolis, on the northern slopes of the Balkans.
+Here their descendants were still living after the lapse of nearly two
+centuries[43], being known by the name of the Lesser Goths, ‘a numerous
+people, but poor and unwarlike, having no abundance of anything, save
+cattle of divers kinds, sheep and pastures and forests; having no wheat,
+though the soil is fertile in other crops. Vineyards they do not possess,
+but some of them as merchants buy wine from the neighbouring district:
+but most of them are nourished on milk.’
+
+Probably Ulfilas did not remain constantly with his Lesser Goths in
+Moesia, but often crossed the Danube into Dacia, to strengthen the faith
+of his remaining converts there, or to add to their number. Apparently
+a second persecution broke out (if, indeed, it had ever ceased to
+rage) about 370. From a fragment of a Gothic calendar we learn that
+the 23rd October was dedicated ‘to the remembrance of many martyrs
+among the Gothic people, and of Frederic’ (doubtless one of the heroes
+of the persecution), and that the 29th was similarly dedicated ‘to the
+remembrance of the martyrs who remained, with Priest Vereka and Batvin,
+members of the Catholic Church, and were burned among the Gothic people.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Athanaric Judge of the Visigoths._]
+
+The leader of the persecuting party at this time was Judge Athanaric, a
+stern, unbending Gothic chief, who would brook no compromise with Rome or
+Roman ways, who had sworn a terrible oath that he would never set foot
+on Roman soil, and who now, to the cruel utmost of his power, strove to
+prevent Odin and Thunnor from being driven out of the Home of Gods by the
+Nazarene, whose cross glittered upon the banners of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fritigern._]
+
+On the opposite side, as leader of that section of the Visigoths which
+favoured the Roman civilisation and the Christian religion, appears the
+gallant Fritigern, one of the most attractive figures whom Gothic history
+presents to us. The contention between him and the bigoted old Gothic
+party under Athanaric was so sharp that it seems to have broken out into
+actual war, in which, as one author[44] tells us, Fritigern, on formally
+announcing his conversion to Christianity, asked and received the help of
+the Roman Emperor against his rival.
+
+[Sidenote: _Outlook in 375._]
+
+Such, then, was the relation of ‘Barbaricum’ towards ‘Romania’ about the
+year 375. Reading (as we are too apt to do) our knowledge of subsequent
+events into the history of that year, when the fourth century of our
+era had reached its fourth quarter, it is easy to imagine the Roman
+Empire lying rich and defenceless, at the mercy of barbarian foes all
+round its border and all athirst to devour it. But such was certainly
+not the aspect which it then wore to its contemporaries. The keen eye of
+a statesman, if he were also possessed of fine ethical instincts, might
+undoubtedly perceive many dangerous symptoms of moral and spiritual
+decay, from which he might forebode its future downfall; but to the
+ordinary observer, especially to the ordinary barbarian observer, seldom
+had the great fabric of Roman civilisation seemed stronger or more
+imposing. Of anything like a combined attack of the barbarian hordes upon
+the Roman frontier, no barbarian dreamed. A petty raid here or there
+might perhaps be successfully executed, and might enable its perpetrator
+to return with some cattle from a few Moesian farms, or some bracelets
+and golden chains from a sacked Illyrian town. But this was the height
+of his ambition as Rome’s enemy. He would much rather be Rome’s friend:
+enter her service as a leader of _foederati_[45]; mount guard in the
+ante-chamber of the Emperor; direct the arms of Rome against some hated
+rival chief; perhaps, even—supreme felicity—attain in his well-fed and
+corpulent old age to the overwhelming honour of a Roman consulship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _Sudden appearance of the Huns. 374._]
+
+The appearance on the northern shore of the Sea of Azof of a horde of
+squalid savages from the steppes of Central Asia, each riding a little
+pony as ugly and as unkempt as himself, changed the whole current of
+men’s thoughts, and was the first visible link in the chain which drew
+mediaeval Europe, the Europe of Charlemagne, Barbarossa, and Dante,
+
+    ‘forth from the abyss of things that were to be.’
+
+These savages were the terrible Huns, of whose history I shall have to
+speak somewhat more in detail in my sixth lecture. For the present it
+will be enough to quote a chapter from the work of the Gothic historian
+Jordanes, in order to show how the Asiatic intruders were looked upon by
+the first European nation with whom they came in contact[46].
+
+[Sidenote: _Description of the Huns by Jordanes._]
+
+‘After no great interval of time the nations of the Huns, more cruel
+than Ferocity itself, flamed forth against the Goths. An unhallowed
+union between unclean spirits wandering through the wilderness, and
+certain Gothic women expelled [centuries before] for witchcraft from the
+tents of their countrymen, gave birth to this most ferocious people,
+which dwelt at first among the marshes—small, foul, and skinny, hardly
+human, but spoken of as men because they possessed something which
+distantly resembled human speech. This wild race formerly dwelt on the
+further shore of the Sea of Azof, and there practised no other labour
+than hunting, except that after they had grown into a great people they
+harried the neighbouring nations with constant robberies and frauds.
+Now when the huntsmen of this people were, according to their custom,
+pursuing the chase on the further shore of Azof, behold, upon a sudden,
+a female stag presented herself to their view, and stepping into the
+pool, first going forth and then stopping, seemed to offer herself as
+guide of their journey. Following her lead, therefore, the huntsmen
+passed over on foot through the Sea of Azof, which they had before
+thought to be as impassable as the ocean. Soon, too, when the Gothic
+shore loomed up before those unknown visitors, the stag disappeared.
+This, I trow, was done by those spirits to whom the Huns owed their
+origin, in order to spite the Gothic people. The huntsmen who had
+before thought that there was no other world beyond the Sea of Azof,
+were stricken with admiration of the Gothic land, the road to which,
+hitherto unknown, they deemed had been shown to them by the gods, and
+going back to their own people, persuaded them to hasten by the path
+which the stag had pointed out to them into the territory of the Goths.
+All whom they met on the way fell victims to their fury, and as soon
+as they had crossed that vast pool, five nations [whose uncouth names
+I need not transcribe] were swept away by that whirlwind of savage
+tribes. The Alans also, who were a match for them in war, but very unlike
+them in civilisation, in appearance, and in diet, were wearied out by
+them in incessant fighting, and at length subdued. For those whom they
+would perhaps never have conquered in fair fight they put to flight
+by the terribleness of their appearance, throwing the utmost possible
+hideousness into the expression of their faces, which were naturally of
+a frightful blackness, and resembled, if I may say so, a shapeless lump
+of dough rather than a face, having two black points in them instead of
+eyes. This scowling countenance reveals the boldness [?cruelty] of their
+hearts, who rage against their new-born offspring even on the first
+day of their birth, for all the male children’s cheeks are gashed by
+them with an iron tool, in order that before they begin to receive the
+nourishment of their mother’s milk they may learn to bear the pain of a
+wound. Hence their youth lacks the beauty, and their old age the dignity
+of a beard, because their faces, furrowed with iron, lose through scars
+the seasonable beauty of hair. They are little in stature, but nimble and
+clever in their movements, and especially ready in horsemanship: with
+broad shoulders, arms well adapted to the use of the bow, necks strong,
+and heads always held erect with pride. In short these people, wearing
+the shape of man, practise in their lives the ferocity of beasts.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the uncouth sentences of the half-educated Gothic historian the
+general character of the Hunnish invaders may be sufficiently discerned.
+They stood on a distinctly lower grade of civilisation than any of the
+Teutonic invaders of the Empire. The Goth, the Frank, the Alaman, the
+Vandal were barbarians indeed, but barbarians with some capacity—in
+the case of the Goth with an extraordinary capacity—for appreciating
+the advantages of civilisation. The Hun, fresh from his centuries
+of wandering over the high table-land of Tartary, was an utter, an
+irreclaimable savage. To compare them with some of the native races with
+which our own has recently come in contact, the Goth was like the Maori,
+the Hun like a stronger and more warlike Australian savage.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Huns were ‘Turanians,’ not Aryans._]
+
+This social difference between the Hun and the Teuton corresponds to a
+deep ethnological chasm. Hitherto all the great struggles in which the
+European nations had been engaged (except the Punic wars) had been waged
+between members of the great Aryan family of nations. Persian, Greek,
+Italian, Celt, Teuton, however wide their divergences of religion, of
+culture, of intellectual development, were yet all children of the same
+family, some of whom, so to speak, had come of age, and entered into
+their inheritance, while others were still in a state of infancy and
+untaught childhood. But the Hun had no such link with the great historic
+peoples of the Mediterranean Sea. In his language probably no germ of
+affinity with Greek or Sanskrit would have been discernible. Wheresoever
+the common home of the Indo-European peoples may eventually be located,
+it is certain that the progenitors of the Hun never dwelt there. He was
+of kin to the Mongol, the Calmuck, the Turk, not to the Roman or the
+Englishman. In the world’s history he stands in line with Jenghiz Khan,
+with Tamerlane, with Bajazet, not with Alexander or with Caesar. In one
+word—to adopt a term which, however inaccurate, is convenient—he was not
+Aryan, but Turanian.
+
+[Sidenote: _A nation of light cavalry._]
+
+Such then were the invaders from Asia, who, about the year 374,
+precipitated themselves upon the settlements of the Ostrogoths in
+Southern Russia. What they may have lacked in size they made up in
+nimbleness of movement, and against the Goths, who do not appear to have
+been pre-eminently an equestrian people, they had this advantage, that
+every man of the tribe was mounted, and mounted on a hardy wiry little
+steed, which was probably satisfied with the roughest food, and which so
+perfectly understood its rider’s wishes, that it seemed as if horse and
+horseman were one being.
+
+[Sidenote: _Hermanric defeated._]
+
+Details as to the conflict between the Huns and the Ostrogoths are
+utterly wanting, but it is clear that the latter were completely
+defeated. Hermanric, ‘the Ostrogothic Alexander’ who is said to have
+reached the age of 110, in his rage and shame put an end to his own life.
+His wide but loosely compacted empire was broken up. Some Ostrogoths,
+under a prince of the house of Hermanric, moved southwards, and took part
+in the events which we are about to notice, on the Danube. But the larger
+part of the nation submitted to inevitable necessity and bowed their
+necks to the yoke. For three quarters of a century the Ostrogoths formed
+part of the great Hunnish Empire, and their sovereigns, descendants of
+the great Hermanric, ruled as vassals of the Hunnish king.
+
+[Sidenote: _Athanaric defeated. 375._]
+
+The barbarian flood rolled on and reached the river Dniester and the long
+line of earthworks which apparently separated the land of the Visigoths
+from that of the Ostrogoths[47]. Here Athanaric had drawn up his men,
+expecting a regular attack, to which he would have been prepared with a
+regular reply. Little did he know the nature of the nimble savages with
+whom he had to deal. Having learned from their scouts where the bulk of
+the Visigothic army was posted (which was probably by the rampart rather
+than by the river), and having found a ford across the Dniester, they
+crossed that ford by moonlight and fell like a thunderbolt on the flank
+of the unsuspecting Athanaric. He was stupefied at the assault, he saw
+his bravest friends slain, and he found he had no resource but flight.
+Withdrawing to the Carpathians he began to construct a new line of
+defence, partly formed by those mountains and partly by the river Sereth.
+He would have had but little leisure to construct this new stronghold,
+had not the Huns been so burdened with their booty that they could not
+follow him in haste.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Visigoths seek refuge within the Empire. 376._]
+
+And now that the strongest Gothic champions had been worsted, dismay
+and despair entered the hearts of the Visigoths. To share the hardships
+of a life in the Carpathians with Athanaric was not the course which
+commended itself to the majority. They looked across the broad Danube to
+the well-tilled plains of Moesia; they thought of the tightening bond
+which had of late united them to the Empire; they turned to Fritigern,
+the steadfast partisan of Rome, and deemed that through his friendship
+for the Emperor they might find a refuge from the storm. Fritigern (who,
+with a perhaps older colleague, Alavivus, is always spoken of as leader
+of the migration) may perhaps, through Ulfilas, have opened negotiations
+with the Imperial Court, negotiations which occupied many weeks, for
+Valens, the reigning Emperor, was at Antioch. The terms which Fritigern
+offered were that the Goths would all enter the military service of
+the Empire, and apparently that those who were still heathens would
+embrace the Emperor’s creed, which was one of the many forms of Arian
+Christianity. On the other hand there must have been some stipulation as
+to the supply of food, at least for one season, to give the new-comers
+time to till the fields for a future harvest.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Goths on the shore of the Danube._]
+
+While the tedious negotiations were going forward, a strange sight might
+be seen on that Wallachian shore of the Danube, where Europe beheld, in
+1877, the vast host of the Russians manœuvring backwards and forwards,
+in order to find a place where they might cross into Bulgaria. On that
+same shore in the autumn of 376 stood 200,000 Goths, stretching out their
+hands in the attitude of entreaty, bewailing the hard fate that had
+befallen them, and shouting out, whenever a Roman official came within
+hearing, their eager offers of fealty to the Emperor.
+
+[Sidenote: _Valens gives them permission to cross._]
+
+At length the answer came from Antioch. Valens was flattered by the
+prospect of the submission of so many stalwart warriors; he persuaded
+himself that by enlisting them under his standards he might lighten the
+pressure of taxation on his subjects; he perhaps also thought that in
+the battle of the creeds which was still being waged, the adhesion of a
+strong and warlike nation to his own Arian form of faith would secure for
+it the victory. This last consideration, however, which is all-important
+on the pages of the ecclesiastical historians, was probably only a
+secondary one in the minds of the Emperor and his Council.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Danube crossed._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Rapacity of the Roman officials._]
+
+Whatever the determining cause may have been, the Imperial orders came
+to Lupicinus the Count of Thrace, and Maximus the Duke of Moesia, that
+the refugees were to be admitted into the Empire on condition that they
+gave up their arms, and that the boys who were still under age for
+martial service should be surrendered as hostages to be quartered in
+various distant cities of the Empire. Thus the long suspense was ended.
+The Visigoths, who night after night had feared to see the Hunnish
+watch-fires blazing in the north and to hear the discordant battle-cry of
+the Asiatics sounding in their ears, were relieved from their terrible
+anxiety. To have to part with their gallant sons was hard: to have to
+part with their old and trusty broadswords was harder, but life was
+sweet. There was the Moesian shore and safety under the shadow of Rome,
+and here were the sloops ready to carry them across to the Promised
+Land. Night and day, for several days, the sloops were crossing and
+re-crossing, till at length 200,000 Gothic warriors, with their wives,
+and children, and aged parents, stood on the soil of the Empire. They
+stood there, not unarmed. Already they had made their first experience
+of the gigantic corruption of the Imperial service. Lupicinus and
+Maximus, and the officers under them, avaricious and lustful men, while
+superintending the transport of the Goths, were thinking all the time how
+to fill their villas with precious spoil and beautiful captives, rather
+than how to obey the orders of the Emperor. While they were intent on the
+golden torques, the linen robes, the costly-fringed carpets of the Goths,
+they allowed the broadswords and the hunting-knives to pass unquestioned.
+Already before the disembarkation was well over, a bitter sense of
+wrong, and consciousness of power to avenge that wrong, were brooding in
+thousands of Gothic hearts.
+
+We may perhaps say of the reception by Valens of the Gothic fugitives, as
+of Elizabeth’s reception of Mary Queen of Scots, that either the request
+for asylum should have been refused, or, if granted, it should have been
+granted generously. There was abundance of room doubtless in the solitary
+spaces of Moesia for 200,000 sturdy cultivators, and if they had been
+wisely and fairly treated they might have formed a stout barrier against
+all other barbarian invaders. Who can say? The Roman Empire might be
+standing yet.
+
+    ‘Trojaque nunc staret, Priamique arx alta maneret.’
+
+But now, in addition to the grievance of their treasures stolen,
+came the far sorer grievance of food withheld. The promised rations,
+perhaps partly from incompetence as well as from bad faith, were not
+forthcoming. With such money as they still possessed the unhappy Goths
+offered to buy food: Lupicinus and Maximus bought up dogs from all the
+districts round and sold their flesh to the starving immigrants in return
+for slaves, among whom were some of the sons of the noblest of the Goths,
+driven to barter even their children for life. Such wickedness as this,
+thank God, does not often miss its reward even in this world.
+
+A few months, however, elapsed before the storm of vengeance burst forth.
+Let us take advantage of that short interval to describe the characters
+of the rulers of the Roman State.
+
+[Sidenote: _Roman Emperors._]
+
+[Sidenote: West, _Valentinian I, 364-375._]
+
+[Sidenote: East, _Valens, 364-378._]
+
+For eleven years (364-375) after the death of Julian ‘the Apostate’
+and his short-lived successor Jovian, Valentinian’s strong hand was
+at the Empire’s helm. A blunt, untutored soldier, with a strange dash
+of cruelty in his nature, he was nevertheless a good ruler for those
+times. He held an even balance between the warring Christian sects,
+insisting on toleration all round; he was careful not to oppress his
+subjects by too heavy taxation; he defended them from the barbarians,
+and he repressed the licentiousness which was sapping the energies of
+the Empire. The worst thing that he did for his country was associating
+his brother Valens in the throne, giving him the rule over the East.
+Both in person and character Valens presented a striking contrast to his
+brother. Valentinian was strong and well-shaped, with a bright complexion
+and clear blue eye: everything about him told of energy and decision.
+Valens, torpid and procrastinating, with muddy complexion, lack-lustre
+eye, bent legs and protuberant belly, neither looked nor spoke like an
+Emperor of Rome. And over against Valentinian’s inflexible and universal
+religious tolerance had to be set the somewhat bitter Arianism of Valens.
+
+[Sidenote: West, _Gratian, 375-383. Valentinian II, 375-392._]
+
+A year before the Hunnish irruption into Europe Valentinian died, leaving
+his brother Valens Emperor of the East, and his two sons, Gratian and
+Valentinian II, Emperors of the West, the former at Trier, the latter at
+Milan. Gratian was a lad full of noble promise, but only sixteen years of
+age; Valentinian II was a child of four, under the regency of his mother,
+Justina. Decidedly the Imperial partnership was weak, ill-adapted for
+the strain of a great crisis, and what made it yet weaker was that it
+was not united. The dull soul of the sluggish Valens was jealous of his
+brilliant nephew, who was already showing military aptitudes and earning
+the devotion of his troops. Justina also, who was the second wife of the
+deceased Emperor, looked probably with no friendly eye on the growing
+reputation of her step-son. The _Concordia Augustorum_[48], which was so
+often celebrated on the Imperial medals, was not strong in the year 376.
+
+[Sidenote: _The banquet at Marcianople. 377._]
+
+We return to the affairs of the betrayed and hunger-stricken Goths.
+There was as yet no open insurrection, but Alavivus and Fritigern were
+marching about in Moesia in a way which seemed to indicate independence
+and growing suspicion; and, moreover, some of the bands of their
+Ostrogothic cousins had taken advantage of the disorder of the times,
+and the occupied attention of the Imperial soldiery, to cross the Danube
+on rafts and pitch their camp not far from Fritigern’s. Before long
+Alavivus and Fritigern appeared at the gates of Marcianople (the modern
+Shumla), an important city at the intersection of two great cross-roads,
+and commanding a pass through the Balkans. The two Visigothic chiefs were
+still ostensibly captains of the Emperor’s _foederati_, and Lupicinus,
+Count of Thrace, bade them to a banquet. The barbarians who followed
+them had flocked into the city to purchase provisions. A dispute arose
+between them and the citizens which led to bloodshed, and the news of
+the disturbance reached Lupicinus when he was reclining at the luxurious
+banquet, flushed with wine and scarcely keeping his heavy eyes open
+by gazing at the performers of a pantomime. Languidly he ordered the
+tall young Gothic nobles who were keeping guard over their chief at the
+door of the _praetorium_ to be hewn down by the far more numerous Roman
+soldiery. The groans of the dying, and the battle-shout of those who were
+yet fighting for their lives, penetrated the innermost chambers of the
+palace, and aroused Fritigern from the pleasures of the dainty repast.
+If his host sought to soothe him by alleging that it was only a drunken
+brawl that was going on outside,
+
+    ‘his soul more truly knew that sound too well.’
+
+He drew his sword and stalked down through the banquet hall, exclaiming
+that if there was a tumult among the Goths he alone could quell it. The
+pretext, or the naked sword, secured him a safe passage through the
+trembling ranks of the banqueters. He was received with a shout of joy
+by his surviving companions. They mounted their horses and rode out of
+the gates of the city; and now, openly declaring war against the Empire,
+began to plunder and to burn the rich farmsteads in the neighbourhood of
+Marcianople. Lupicinus marched forth to meet them at the ninth milestone
+from the city; but his troops, hastily collected, were badly led. The
+Goths, in their fury and despair, beat down their enemies. All the
+tribunes (commissioned officers) and the larger part of the rank and file
+were stretched in death upon the plain. The base Lupicinus, whose cruelty
+and avarice had caused the disaster, escaped from this battle-field, but
+before long both he and his colleague in guilt, Maximus, fell victims to
+the righteous vengeance of the Goths[49].
+
+That day, that fatal day of the banquet at Marcianople, ‘took away,’ says
+the Gothic historian, ‘the hunger of the Goths and the security of the
+Romans; and the former now began, not as strangers and foreigners, but as
+citizens and lords, to issue their orders to the cultivators of the soil,
+and to hold all the northern regions [from the Balkans] to the Danube in
+their own right.’
+
+[Sidenote: _377-378. Gothic War._]
+
+[Sidenote: _377. Battle of Ad Salices._]
+
+The war thus commenced lasted, with varying success, through the years
+377 and 378. The Emperor Valens, during the whole of the former year,
+remained at Antioch, but sent two officers of high rank, but of no great
+military skill, to conduct the campaign in his stead. On the whole,
+however, the fortune of war must have been unfavourable to the Goths (who
+evidently fought with more fury than science), since the chief battle of
+this year was fought at a place called Ad Salices (the Willows), as far
+north as the region now known as the Dobrudscha. Our chief historian[50]
+(himself long an officer of rank in the Imperial army) gives a striking
+description of the Gothic warriors, encamped in the centre of a rampart
+of waggons, and revelling in the abundance of the booty which they had
+carried off from the wasted plains of Thrace. All night the two armies
+lay encamped near to one another in sleepless suspense. With the dawn
+of day the barbarians made an attempt to reach some higher ground, from
+whence they might rush down on the enemy; but this manœuvre was checked
+by a well-executed counter-movement of the legions. As both armies halted
+and gazed at one another with scowling faces, the Romans raised their
+martial song (itself borrowed from other barbarians), which was known
+as the _barritus_, and which, beginning in a low bass key, rose, as it
+were, by steps to a shrill and exultant treble. The barbarians answered
+by the old war-songs (discordant in Roman ears, but in which our Saxon
+forefathers would probably have found familiar music), wherein they sang
+the praises of their glorious ancestors, sprung from the seed of gods,
+and dear to Odin.
+
+Then the battle was joined, and the marshy willow-intersected plain
+was seen covered with every phase of human agony; but all was din and
+confusion, and if any well-concerted plan was formed or executed on
+either side, it does not appear in the pages of the historian. The battle
+was a drawn one; but apparently the Romans were left in possession of the
+field, for their dead were buried, while the bodies of the Goths were
+left to be devoured by vultures. Years after, the husbandman, ploughing
+in that fatal plain, marvelled at the mighty bones of the barbarians
+which his plough-share upturned.
+
+[Sidenote: _Advance of Gratian._]
+
+In this battle good service had been rendered by some troops which
+Gratian had sent from Gaul to the assistance of his uncle. The young
+Emperor had had his own hard battles to fight with the barbarians who
+dwelt on the northern shore of the Lake of Constance, but having subdued
+them he marched eastwards in 378 as far as Sirmium on the Save, from
+which place he sent a message to Valens that he was ready to co-operate
+with him in an attack on the Goths, whose invasion seemed to imperil the
+very existence of the eastern portion of the Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: _378. Valens at Hadrianople._]
+
+But Valens, who had by this time quitted Antioch for Constantinople, was
+jealous of his young nephew’s fame, and in no humour to add one needless
+leaf of laurel to his crown. He had pitched his camp near Hadrianople,
+and there received the messengers of Gratian, who earnestly besought
+him to wait for their master’s arrival. So Victor advised, a Slavonic
+barbarian by birth, but master of the Imperial cavalry, and a careful and
+cautious general. So, however, did not advise his other chief general
+Sebastian, who was elated by some recent victories that he had won over
+the barbarians: and his rash counsels found too sure an echo in the
+jealous heart of Valens. It was decided to fight at once and end the
+Gothic war by the unaided forces of the East.
+
+[Sidenote: _Negotiations between Fritigern and Valens._]
+
+But Fritigern on his side had allies whose arrival he was expecting.
+The Ostrogothic chiefs, Alatheus and Saphrax, were on their march to
+join him, and he would fain postpone the battle till they arrived. He
+therefore sent a Christian priest on an embassy to Valens, offering to
+make peace if he and his followers might be allowed to occupy Thrace as
+subjects of the Empire. Nothing came of these negotiations; nothing was
+meant to come of them; but time was gained for Alatheus and Saphrax to
+accomplish another day’s march towards the army of Fritigern.
+
+[Sidenote: _Battle of Hadrianople, 9 Aug. 378._]
+
+On the 9th August, 378, a day long and fatally memorable in the annals of
+the Empire, the legions of Valens moved forth from their entrenched camp
+under the walls of Hadrianople, and after a march of eight miles under
+the hot sun of August came in sight of the barbarian vanguard, behind
+which stretched the circling line of the waggons that guarded the Gothic
+host.
+
+Yet another embassy did the artful Fritigern (perhaps not over-confident
+of victory) send into the Roman camp. There were discussions as to the
+dignity and powers of the messengers: the Goth was willing to send one
+of his noblest chiefs if the Roman would do the same as a pledge of his
+safety. Richomer, Count of the Domestics, Gratian’s representative,
+expressed his willingness to go as a hostage into the barbarian camp,
+but scarcely had he reached it when, behold! fresh standards were seen
+upon the surrounding hills. The long-waited for troops of Alatheus and
+Saphrax had arrived, and not pausing in their headlong career fell like a
+thunderbolt on the Roman flank.
+
+The soldiers of the Empire, hot, thirsty, wearied out with hours of
+waiting under the blaze of an August sun, and only half understanding
+that the negotiations were ended and the battle begun, fought at a
+terrible disadvantage, but fought not ill. The infantry on the left wing
+seem even to have pushed back their enemies and penetrated to the Gothic
+waggons. But they were for some reason not covered as usual by a force
+of cavalry, and they were jammed into a too narrow space of ground where
+they could not use their spears with effect, yet presented a terribly
+easy mark to the Gothic arrows. They fell in dense masses as they had
+stood. Then the whole weight of the enemy’s attack was directed against
+the centre and right. When the evening began to close in, the utterly
+routed Roman soldiers were rushing in disorderly flight from the fatal
+field. The night, dark and moonless, may have protected some, but more
+met their death rushing blindly over a rugged and unknown country.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fate of Valens._]
+
+Meanwhile, Valens had sought shelter with a little knot of soldiers (the
+two regiments of Lancearii and Mattiarii), who still remained unmoved
+amidst the surging sea of ruin. When their ranks too were broken, and
+when some of his bravest officers had fallen around him, he joined the
+common soldiers in their headlong flight. Struck by a Gothic arrow he
+fell to the ground, but was carried off by some of the eunuchs and
+life-guardsmen who still accompanied him, to a peasant’s cottage hard by.
+The Goths, ignorant of his rank, but eager to strip the gaily-clothed
+guardsmen, surrounded the cottage and attempted in vain to burst in the
+doors. Then mounting to the roof they tried to smoke out the imprisoned
+inmates, but succeeding beyond their desires, set fire to the cottage,
+and Emperor, eunuchs, and life-guards perished in the flames. Only one
+of the body-guard escaped, who climbed out through one of the blazing
+windows and fell into the hands of the barbarians. He told them when
+it was too late what a prize they had missed in their cruel eagerness,
+nothing less than the Emperor of Rome.
+
+Ecclesiastical historians for generations delighted to point the moral
+of the story of Valens, that he who had seduced the whole Gothic nation
+into the heresy of Arius, and thus caused them to suffer the punishment
+of everlasting fire, was himself by those very Goths burned alive on the
+terrible 9th of August.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE IV.
+
+THEODOSIUS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _378._]
+
+In the battle of Hadrianople two-thirds of the Roman army fell. The two
+Counts, Sebastian and Trajan (the General-in-Chief and his predecessor),
+Valerian, the Count of the Imperial Stables, and Aequitius, a relation
+of the Emperor and Superintendent of his palace[51], were all stretched
+dead upon the field. There too lay thirty-five Tribunes, officers whose
+military rank corresponded with that of our Colonels. The historian says,
+with perfect truth, that since the day of Cannae no such disaster had
+befallen the Roman army. Nor had the Roman State, now in the twelfth
+century of its existence, the same power of recovering from its reverses
+which it possessed in the sixth century from the building of the City,
+when the statue of Victory in the Capitol drooped her wings at the news
+of the slaughter on the Apulian plain.
+
+[Sidenote: _Movements of the Goths after the battle of Hadrianople._]
+
+[Sidenote: _378. Siege of Constantinople._]
+
+Yet the Goths, though they had shown that they could win a battle, had
+as yet neither discipline nor warlike art sufficient to enable them to
+conquer in a campaign. An unsuccessful attack on Hadrianople was followed
+by an equal failure before the walls of Constantinople. By a strange
+inversion of its future fates, the Imperial capital by the Bosphorus was
+defended from these Visigoths (the ancestors of Don John of Austria and
+of all the Christian chivalry of Spain) by a body of Saracen soldiers
+who had been enlisted under the banners of the Empire. One of these wild
+defenders of civilisation, nearly naked but with long and shaggy hair,
+dashed forward with a melancholy howl into the Gothic ranks, stabbed an
+enemy with his short sword, and then putting his lips to the neck of the
+slain foe sucked his life-blood with eager zest. The thought of fighting
+against such monsters as this was too terrible for the impressionable
+Goths, and they retired disheartened from the walls.
+
+[Sidenote: _Weakness of the Goths as besiegers._]
+
+[Sidenote: _A Roman siege-train._]
+
+[Sidenote: _378-9._]
+
+But, quite independently of any such exceptional causes of panic,
+there was a striking weakness in the Gothic attack whenever they came
+face to face with a fenced city. When Fritigern marched away from the
+treacherous city of Marcianople, crying out, ‘I wage no war on stone
+walls,’ he expressed that which was of necessity the maxim of all the
+barbarian warriors during the succeeding century. It cannot be said
+that at this time the powers of the defence in sieges were necessarily
+superior to those of the attack. On the contrary, in the wars between
+Persia and Rome it is remarkable how often the same cities were taken
+and retaken. But a siege required patience, mechanical skill, and
+untiring vigilance, and could not be decided by a mere outburst of
+Berserker fury such as sometimes swept the legions before it on the
+field of battle. In reading the account of a Roman siege-train given
+by Ammianus Marcellinus[52], though I cannot say that I understand all
+his explanations (and I believe it would require the combination of an
+expert mechanician and an invincible translator of Latin to make sense
+of many of them), still it is easy to perceive this much—that a siege
+was then, as now, practically a duel of artillery, though in the working
+of that artillery the explosive force of gunpowder was not made use of,
+and that it was by the engineer, rather than by the warrior, that the
+strongest city was taken. There was the _Balista_, for the discharge
+of the strong iron-shod wooden arrow; the _Scorpion_, or the _Wild
+Ass_[53], which suddenly reared itself high in air and hurled forth its
+heavy stone; the _Battering Ram_[54], for butting at all the weakest
+places in a wall; the _City-taker_[55], which fastened its triangular
+prongs into the wall and tore it to pieces. By these and by the great
+moving towers the city was attacked, and by machines as complicated and
+as destructive, but of a somewhat different kind, it was defended. For
+all this sort of work, as I have said, not only the humbler qualities
+of the soldier—patience and vigilance—but also some of the skill of a
+trained mechanician, were needed; and these qualities, abundantly present
+in many even of the common soldiers among the Italians, the Greeks, and
+the Persians, were yet wanting in the untutored brains of the Teutonic
+warriors. Therefore the story of the wars between the barbarians and
+the Empire is for the most part a story of monotonous uniformity of
+ill-success, as far as the sieges undertaken by the former are concerned.
+They win battles in the open field; they occupy the great Roman roads,
+and cut off communication between the provinces and the capital; they
+lay waste the country districts, and sometimes by the famine thus caused
+they deprive the citizens of the means of prolonging their resistance.
+More often, by the treachery of slaves or fellow-countrymen of their own
+inside the walls, they bring about the city’s fall; but scarcely ever do
+they take it by fair and open warfare, in a regularly-conducted siege.
+And for a considerable part of those seventy years of struggle which I am
+briefly describing to you, you must think of the cities as standing up
+behind their quadrangular walls, little islands of civilisation and still
+unshaken loyalty to the Empire, while over the fields and through the
+unwalled villages rages the wide-sweeping flood of barbarian invasion.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Gothic attack grows feebler, 378-379._]
+
+This was essentially the character of the war during the years 378 and
+379, though the Roman defence was gradually becoming stronger, and the
+attacks of the Goths wilder and more purposeless during the whole of
+that period. The despair and the hatred which had banded them together
+as one man under the leadership of Fritigern, lost their uniting power.
+They roamed southwards into the pleasant lands of Achaia, northwards
+to the Save, into and perhaps across the borders of Pannonia; but the
+hope of plunder and a child’s love of breaking beautiful things seem to
+have been their only motives. There is no longer a trace of that serious
+purpose of conquest which does seem to have animated them up to the day
+of Hadrianople.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Gothic hostage-boys massacred. 378-9._]
+
+One vile deed of a Roman official must have stirred many Gothic hearts
+to fury, yet did not receive its proper meed of vengeance. It will
+be remembered that when the Visigothic warriors were ferried across
+the Danube in the Imperial cutters, they were compelled to deliver up
+the sons of the noblest among them as hostages. These lads had been
+distributed through the cities of the East: while their fathers and
+their kindred had been suffering the hardships of famine, they had been
+growing up to manhood, and it was feared that the news of the victory of
+Hadrianople might arouse them to some deed of daring against the Empire.
+Julius, Master of the Soldiery[56], to whose care these young hostages
+had been especially committed, sent for the various military prefects,
+and after binding them to secrecy under solemn oaths, communicated to
+them his bloody purpose. The young Goths in each district were invited to
+the capital of the province under promise of receiving grants of money
+and land from the Emperor. They came full of hope and of good-humour
+towards their hosts. As soon as they were all collected in the forum
+of each city, the soldiers, who had been previously stationed on the
+roofs of the surrounding houses, assailed them with darts and stones.
+They were of course utterly unable to strike a blow in return against
+their cowardly assailants, and each Asiatic forum soon had its heap of
+unresisting slain. A base and treacherous deed, and one which we regret
+to find both our two chief historians[57] of this period mentioning with
+words of praise for its cowardly contrivers.
+
+[Sidenote: _Gratian associates Theodosius in the Imperial dignity._]
+
+The disorganisation of the Empire after the battle of Hadrianople was
+complete, and Gratian wisely concluded that he, a lad of nineteen, was
+not able, unaided, to bring it to a close. He looked around him for a
+colleague, and recognised with the frankness of his noble nature that
+there was no man so suitable for the post as one whom his family had
+deeply wronged, the late Duke of Moesia, THEODOSIUS.
+
+[Sidenote: _Origin of Theodosius._]
+
+This man, whose name in various ways has become so famous in the history
+both of the Empire and the Church, was born about the year 346 at a place
+called Cauca, in the north-western corner of Spain. He belonged by birth
+to the class of wealthy Provincials from which many of the officials of
+the Empire were chosen, and who constituted in fact, if not in name,
+a sort of rural nobility. After he had been clothed with the purple,
+flatterers and poets discovered that he was a remote descendant of the
+great Emperor Trajan, but this seems to have been only a courtier-like
+deduction from the fact that he, like Trajan, was a Spaniard.
+
+[Sidenote: _368-376._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Theodosius the Elder._]
+
+[Sidenote: _376-379._]
+
+His father, Count Theodosius, had been sent to Britain in 368 to repel
+an invasion of Picts, Scots, and Attacotti, and making the old town of
+Lundinium his base of operations, had attacked the various parties of
+freebooters who were roaming about the country, and had succeeded in
+spoiling the spoilers, and restoring the greater part of their property
+to the plundered provincials. Two years afterwards he had delivered
+Raetia (Tyrol and the Grisons) from a similar invasion of the Alamanni,
+and had sent many of the invaders to Italy to cultivate as serfs the
+meadow lands of the Po. In 373 he conducted a most successful campaign in
+Africa against a Mauritanian chieftain, Firmus, who had rebelled against
+the Emperor. The rebel committed suicide, and his conqueror, with the
+title of _Comes Africae_, administered the government of the province
+which he had saved. Then came a sudden check to his prosperous course.
+In 376, shortly after the death of Valentinian, he was accused, we know
+not on what charge, sentenced to death, and beheaded at Carthage, having
+first received the sacrament of baptism. The cause of this strange and
+sad termination of an honourable career has never been explained. Some
+think that the young Gratian, only just arrived at the helm of affairs,
+was jealous of the veteran’s fame, but nothing in the character of
+that Emperor justifies so foul a charge. Others believe that his real
+offence was having exposed the villainies and peculations of Romanus,
+his predecessor in the government of Africa. But it seems to me on the
+whole most probable that his death was in some way connected with an
+outburst of jealous rage and suspicion on the part of Valens against all
+persons whose names began with the letters THEOD, Theodorus, Theodoret,
+and so forth, as it had come to the ears of the Emperor that a citizen
+of Antioch had been resorting to magical arts to learn the name of his
+future successor, and that those letters (which proved fatal to many a
+Roman citizen) had been revealed by the oracle as forming the beginning
+of the fated name.
+
+On the death of his father, the young Theodosius, then about thirty years
+of age, who had done good service to the State as Duke of Moesia, retired
+into private life. If, as was probably the case, he was succeeded by the
+base and corrupt Maximus, whose avarice drove the Goths to despair, the
+unjust death of the elder Theodosius was indeed soon and terribly avenged
+on his ungrateful masters.
+
+[Sidenote: _Theodosius Emperor of the East, 19 Jan. 379._]
+
+Now, however, the fortunes of the house of Theodosius emerged from the
+cloud, more resplendent than ever. The new Emperor was clothed in the
+purple and invested with ‘the rule of the universe’ (ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχή) at
+Sirmium, on the 19th of January, 379. The share of the Empire assigned
+to his immediate superintendence was of course the East, together with
+Macedonia and Dacia. The rest of the Diocese of Illyricum was joined, now
+as on many other occasions, to the Western half of the Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: _Guerilla War. 379-380._]
+
+The first duty that Theodosius had to undertake was to restore the
+self-confidence and trust in victory of the Roman army, terribly shaken
+as these qualities had been by the disastrous rout of Hadrianople. This
+he accomplished by waging a successful guerilla war with the Gothic
+marauders. Valens had played into the hands of the barbarians by risking
+everything on one great pitched battle. Theodosius adopted the very
+opposite policy. He outmanœuvred the isolated and straggling bands of the
+Goths, defeated them in one skirmish after another that did not deserve
+the name of a battle, and thus restored the courage and confidence of the
+Imperial troops. By the end of 379 he seems to have succeeded in clearing
+the territory south of the Balkan range of the harassing swarms of the
+barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sickness of Theodosius._]
+
+In February, 380, he fell sick at Thessalonica (which was his chief basis
+of operations throughout this period), and this sickness, from which he
+did not fully recover for some months, was productive of two important
+results, (1) his baptism as a Trinitarian Christian, (2) a renewal of the
+war against fresh swarms of barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: _Theodosius adopts the Creed of Nicaea. 380._]
+
+(1) Theodosius appears up to this point of his career not to have
+definitely ranged himself on either side of the great Arian controversy,
+though he had a hereditary inclination towards the Creed of Nicaea. Like
+his father, however, he had postponed baptism in accordance with the
+prevalent usage of his day: but now upon a bed of sickness which seemed
+likely to be one of death, he delayed no longer, but received the rite at
+the hands of Ascholius, the Catholic Bishop of Thessalonica. Before he
+was able to resume his post at the head of the legions, he published his
+celebrated Edict: ‘To the people of Constantinople.—We desire that all
+the nations who are governed by the rule of our Clemency shall practise
+that religion which the Apostle Peter himself delivered to the Romans,
+and which it is manifest that the pontiff Damasus, and Peter, Bishop of
+Alexandria, a man of Apostolic sanctity, do now follow: that according
+to the discipline of the Apostles and the teaching of the Evangelists
+they believe in the one Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in equal
+Majesty, and in the holy Trinity. We order all who follow this law to
+assume the name of Catholic Christians, decreeing that all others, being
+mad and foolish persons, shall bear the infamy of their heretical dogmas,
+and that their Conventicles shall not receive the name of Churches: to be
+punished first by Divine vengeance, and afterwards by that exertion of
+our power to chastise which we have received from the decree of heaven.’
+
+[Sidenote: _The power of the Eastern State now enlisted on the side of
+Orthodoxy._]
+
+Thus then at length the Caesar of the East was ranged on the side of
+Trinitarian orthodoxy. Constantine in the latter part of his reign,
+Constantius, Valens, had all been Arians or semi-Arians, some of them
+bitter in their heterodoxy. Julian had been a worshipper of the gods of
+Olympus. Thus for nearly two generations the influence of the Court of
+Constantinople had been thrown into the scale against the teaching of
+Athanasius, which was generally accepted throughout the Western realm.
+Now by the accession of Theodosius to the Trinitarian side, religious
+unity was restored to the Empire: but at the same time a chasm, an
+impassable chasm, was opened between the Empire itself and its new
+Teutonic guests, nearly all of whom held fast to the Arian teaching of
+their great Apostle Ulfilas.
+
+[Sidenote: _Further inroads of the barbarians._]
+
+(2) The other consequence of the sickness of Theodosius was, as I have
+said, a fresh incursion of barbarian hordes, swarming across the Danube
+and climbing all the high passes of the Balkans. The work of clearing the
+country of these marauders had to be all done over again. One dark night,
+when the Emperor was encamping in Macedonia, the barbarians, seeing a
+particularly bright watch-fire burning, and rightly conjecturing that
+it marked the tent of the Emperor, made a sudden dash and very nearly
+succeeded in sending Theodosius to rejoin his predecessor Valens. There
+was a terrible struggle: few Romans against the overwhelming hosts of
+the Goths, but the soldiers of Theodosius, who loved him well, fought on
+desperately till he had escaped, and then fell dead, surrounded by an
+uncounted host of slain barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: _Reinforcements sent by Gratian, 380._]
+
+The campaign of 380 was such a hard one that Theodosius had to solicit
+reinforcements from his colleague Gratian, which were sent to him under
+the command of Bauto and Arbogast, two Frankish chiefs who had entered
+the Imperial service. Indeed all along the line, in the West as in
+the East, the characteristic feature of this period was the number of
+barbarians who attained high rank in the legions of Rome, and who upon
+the whole served her with marked fidelity.
+
+At length, in the closing months of 380, the provinces south of the
+Balkans (Macedonia and Thrace) were once more cleared of their barbarian
+intruders. Peace, in which Gratian concurred, was concluded with the
+Goths who still doubtless abounded in Moesia; and Theodosius on the 24th
+of November entered Constantinople in state.
+
+[Sidenote: _Theodosius welcomes Athanaric at Constantinople, 381._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Athanaric’s death._]
+
+The inhabitants of the New Rome by the Bosphorus, who perhaps had not
+before seen Theodosius as Emperor, were soon to behold a ruler of a
+very different type side by side with the courtly and magnificent
+Spaniard. The grey old Visigoth, Athanaric, had been driven, apparently
+by Ostrogothic invaders, from his airy stronghold in the Carpathians.
+The death of Fritigern (which seems to have happened about this time)
+left him the chief ruler of the scattered and disorganised Visigothic
+nation. Converted from his old, almost religious prejudice against Rome,
+and recanting the oath which he had once sworn never to set foot on the
+soil of the Empire, he now crossed the Danube and accepted the Emperor’s
+invitation to visit him in his capital, probably in order to ratify and
+proclaim to the world the peace just concluded between ‘Romania’ and
+‘Gothia.’ We must let the Gothic historian tell the story of this visit
+in his own expressive words[58].
+
+‘Theodosius attached to himself King Athanaric, who had succeeded
+Fritigern, by the gifts which he gave him, and in the kindest terms
+invited him to visit him at Constantinople; who accepted right willingly
+and said, marvelling, “Lo, I behold, what often I heard incredulously,
+the fame of so great a city.” Then turning his eyes this way and that,
+now he admires the position of the city and the concourse of ships, now
+the long clearly-marked line of the walls, and then again the natives
+from so many different stocks bubbling up like water from one fountain
+in many directions, yet all disciplined like well-trained soldiers.
+“A god,” he said, “without doubt a god upon earth is the Emperor, and
+whoever moveth a hand against him, that man is guilty of his own blood.”
+In such a state of admiration, being supported by the yet greater honours
+which he received from the Emperor, after the interval of a few months
+[or more correctly fourteen days[59]] he departed from the light of day.
+Whom the Emperor out of the love which he bore to him, honouring almost
+more as dead than as alive, delivered to a worthy burial, himself going
+before the bier in his solemn obsequies. Therefore when Athanaric was
+dead, all his army, remaining in the service of the Emperor Theodosius,
+and submitting itself to the Roman Empire, formed as it were one body
+with the [Imperial] soldiery, that old enlistment of the Foederati under
+the Emperor Constantine being now renewed, and they themselves were now
+called Foederati.’
+
+[Sidenote: _The bulk of the Goths become Foederati of the Empire._]
+
+There can be no doubt that the politic courtesy which Theodosius showed
+to Athanaric exercised an important influence on the relations which
+existed for the next fifteen years between the Empire and the Goths.
+If we look at the position of the two parties to the contract we shall
+see that the conclusion or the renewal of the _Foedus_ between them was
+really for the interest of both. For the Empire, a complete reversal
+of the policy of Valens was now impossible. Ever since the day when
+the last of the 200,000 Gothic warriors was ferried across the Danube,
+their inclusion in the Empire in one capacity or another had become
+an accomplished and irreversible fact. They could not be thrust back
+into their old Dacian home, where by this time the Huns were probably
+swarming, but they might be converted from the ravagers of Thrace into
+the tillers of Moesia. They might be made the stalwart defenders of the
+Danubian frontier against those very Huns, and against the motley horde
+of Teutons, Slaves, and Tartars who flocked around their standard of
+squalid and anarchic despotism.
+
+On the other hand the Goths, unable to capture the strong cities of the
+Empire, could not live perpetually on the mere ravage of the Thracian
+home-steads. Viewing the movements of peoples and the migrations of
+barbarous tribes from the high historic standpoint, and especially seeing
+what these movements and migrations actually accomplished in the fifth
+century of our era, we are apt to think that the conquest of kingdoms and
+the foundation of empires was the deliberate and persistent purpose of
+chief and people. On the contrary, if we could be present in the rough
+councils which gathered around their camp-fires and listen to the talk
+of the warriors with their wives in the great Gothic waggons, we should
+probably discover that the question in what way and from what source the
+next day’s meal was to be provided, was far more often and more anxiously
+debated than any question of high policy or dream of world-conquest. Now,
+by the policy which Theodosius seemed willing to adopt of renewing the
+old _Foedus_ between Rome and her Gothic friends, food, and comfortable
+homes, and a distinguished career in arms were assured to the meanest
+Gothic soldier, and admission to the dignities and luxuries of the most
+splendid court in the world was assured to their chiefs. The Roman
+Empire was still, if I may use a commercial phrase, ‘a going concern.’
+The barbarians had power to wreck it and drive it into bankruptcy? Yes,
+perhaps they had: but it was surely a far more alluring prospect to take
+shares in the company and touch some part of the enormous profits which
+accrued to the directors.
+
+This kind of calculation—and I have purposely chosen a commercial
+metaphor in order to indicate the perfectly selfish character of the
+bargain—prevailed at this time in the minds of the barbarians over any
+dim and shadowy dreams which might linger there of setting up a new and
+conquering Visigothic kingdom between the Danube and the Balkans. But
+then, when self-interest was prompting them to this course, sentiment
+was enlisted on the same side by the generous hospitality offered to the
+worn-out veteran Athanaric in the great city of the South, by his own
+childlike admiration of the wonders which she displayed to his view, by
+the splendid funeral, and by the sight of the courtly Augustus, robed in
+the purple and wearing the diadem of Empire, escorting the Gothic warrior
+to his tomb.
+
+[Sidenote: _What did the relation of Foederati involve?_]
+
+What the precise nature of the tie was which bound the _foederati_ to the
+Empire I do not think we can definitely explain. From time immemorial
+Rome had fought her battles with troops pretty equally divided between
+the legions (theoretically composed of pure Roman citizens) and the
+_Auxilia_ (consisting of her subject-allies). These allies had at first
+been chiefly dwellers in the cities of Latium, but by the time that
+we have now reached they were gathered from almost every nation under
+heaven. Here, in our own Northumberland, all the garrison duty along the
+Wall was done by these auxiliary troops. Asturians from Spain, Tungrians
+and Batavians from Holland, Dacians from Transylvania, and Dalmatians
+from the eastern shore of the Hadriatic, were keeping watch for Rome on
+these wind-swept hills. But _those_ allies were still distinctly Roman
+soldiers, who served under Roman officers, and were amenable to Roman
+discipline. The bond which held the _foederati_ to the Empire appears to
+have been a much looser one. It would seem that the federated Goths still
+served under their own native chiefs, and retained to a large extent
+their national weapons and their own peculiar manner of fighting. They no
+doubt had lands assigned to them, chiefly in Moesia, which they may have
+cultivated partly with their own hands and partly by the forced labour
+of _coloni_. In fact, though we are of course still many centuries off
+from regular feudal rights and obligations, there was probably something
+in the relation of a chief of _foederati_ to the Emperor not altogether
+unlike the relation of a feudal baron to his lord paramount.
+
+[Sidenote: _Results of the policy of Theodosius._]
+
+The scheme of Theodosius answered as a temporary expedient. It gave
+security to the Danubian frontier for his day; perhaps had his successors
+been men of equal ability with himself it might have prolonged that
+security for centuries. But there were some obvious dangers attending
+it. Evidently these masses of men, trained to act together, obeying
+their own princes, and conscious of their strength, might one day turn
+against Rome the weapons which they were now wielding on her behalf.
+The ‘provincials,’ the earlier subjects of Rome, finding their services
+less needed, would grow unused to warfare, and would in the course of
+time be almost sure to sink into a despised and spiritless caste, among
+whom the proud Teutonic _foederatus_ would stalk with an exasperating
+consciousness of superiority. Above all, the Emperor himself, having
+the barbarians for his tent companions, the sharers of his dangers, the
+confidants of his councils, and the supporters of his throne, would
+get to lean more and more upon them, and might become an Emperor of
+barbarians instead of an Emperor of the civilised commonwealth of Rome.
+
+The whole history of Theodosius shows that this was a very real danger
+in his time. There was something in his own character, fond as he was
+of pomp and spectacle and the mere outward trappings of royalty, which
+harmonised only too well with the nature of the barbarians. While he
+was surrounding himself with troops of tall and brilliantly-accoutred
+_foederati_, and spending his time and the money of his subjects over an
+endless round of games and chariot-races, and on sumptuous banquets at
+which the Gothic ‘wassail’ was loudly heard, the provinces were groaning
+under the demands of the tax-gatherer; and the machine of administration
+which Valens, with all his faults, had superintended with some diligence,
+was daily getting into more and more hopeless disorganisation.
+
+[Sidenote: _Insurrection of Antioch, 387._]
+
+Both the two great insurrections which broke out in the reign of
+Theodosius, and each of which is connected with the story of a great
+father of the Church, sprang, directly or indirectly, from the favour
+shown by the Emperor to his _foederati_. In the year 387 he determined
+to celebrate the fifth year of the reign of his young son Arcadius, whom
+he had associated with him in the Empire, in a style of extraordinary
+magnificence. For this purpose there must be more splendid games, more
+exciting chariot-races, and, above all, a more liberal donative to the
+soldiery than any that had yet been given. In order to supply funds for
+these various expenses, a new tax (probably what was called the _aurum
+coronarium_) was levied on the cities of the Empire. At the news of
+this fresh imposition, the citizens of Antioch, already ground down to
+the very dust by the pressure of the ordinary taxation, broke out into
+open rebellion. While the more respectable and religious citizens betook
+themselves to the churches to pray God to change the Emperor’s purpose,
+or besought the Bishop Flavianus to intercede for the removal of the tax,
+a mob of boys and ‘lewd fellows of the baser sort’ visited the spacious
+Baths, and cutting the ropes by which the lamps were suspended, caused
+them to fall with a crash on the pavement. Then the boys began to throw
+stones at the wooden statues of the Emperor and his family. They shouted
+for joy when one of the statues was split in pieces; they groaned when
+one, more stubborn than the rest, long resisted their assaults. They then
+went to the more costly bronze statues, pulled them from their pedestals
+with ropes, dragged them ignominiously through the streets, and ended by
+giving them to the children to play with. What made the insult the more
+bitter was, that not only the statues of the Emperor himself, but those
+of the noble old veteran his father, of his lately deceased wife, and of
+his young son and colleague, were all treated with the same contumely.
+Next came an attempt at fire-raising in the house of a magistrate who
+tried to persuade them to cease their rioting; and last, the appearance
+of some Imperial archers, who discharged their arrows upon the crowd.
+Thereupon at once the tumult, which had flamed up so high and seemed so
+menacing, died down like a fire of straw.
+
+[Sidenote: _Reaction from insolence to panic._]
+
+The insult to the majesty of the Emperor had been great, perhaps
+unforgiveable. The whole city passed in an hour from the extreme of
+insolence and anarchy to the extreme of cowed submission and abject
+terror, while the messengers bearing the fatal tidings were going to and
+returning from Constantinople. The sedition had broken out a few days
+before Lent (387), and the whole of the forty days of that sacred season
+were indeed days of fasting and humiliation to the luxurious citizens
+of Antioch. About the middle of them arrived a letter from the Emperor,
+sharply rebuking the Town Council for allowing the sedition to gain such
+a height, ordering that the Theatre, the Hippodrome, and the Baths should
+all be closed, and depriving Antioch of the rank, which she had held for
+six centuries, as capital of Syria. Shortly after appeared two Imperial
+Commissioners—Caesarius and Ellebichus—charged to make enquiry into the
+recent events; and they began their enquiry by putting all the Senators
+of Antioch into close confinement.
+
+[Sidenote: _Pardon._]
+
+The two commissioners, however, were specimens of the best class of Roman
+officials, men utterly unlike Lupicinus and Maximus. They marked the
+sincere repentance and the agonised prostration of terror which pervaded
+all classes in Antioch, and they soon allowed it to appear that their
+influence at any rate would be exerted on the side of mercy. Caesarius,
+when the enquiry was completed, set off with all speed to Constantinople,
+and reached that city on the sixth day after his departure from Antioch.
+No Turkish courier probably could now traverse the length and breadth
+of Asia Minor in anything like so short a time. Theodosius listened to
+the arguments of Caesarius in favour of mercy, to the prayers and sighs
+of Bishop Flavianus, who had come to intercede on behalf of his flock,
+and granted a complete amnesty, rescinding also his previous decree for
+the degradation of Antioch from the rank of capital city. This letter,
+carried by a swift messenger to Ellebichus, was by him communicated to
+the citizens of Antioch, who received it with shouts of welcome and
+tears of joy. Their fifty days of mourning were ended, and Antioch, the
+light-hearted Paris of the East, was herself again.
+
+The story of this singular insurrection has been preserved for us by
+the orations of the heathen sophist Libanius and by the homilies of the
+great Christian preacher, St. John Chrysostom, at that time a priest at
+Antioch, afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople.
+
+[Sidenote: _Insurrection of Thessalonica, 390._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Brutal vengeance._]
+
+The insurrection at Antioch displayed the character of Theodosius in a
+favourable light, as a strong but merciful and magnanimous ruler of men.
+Very different was the effect on his fame of the insurrection which broke
+out three years later (390) in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica. A
+garrison of Gothic _foederati_ was quartered in this important city.
+Already it is probable that many causes of quarrel had arisen between the
+Thessalonians and their overbearing but under-educated guests. The wrath
+grew to its height when Botheric, the Gothic general, shut up in prison
+a certain scoundrel of a charioteer who had vilely insulted him. At the
+next races the mob of Thessalonica tumultuously demanded the charioteer’s
+liberation, and when Botheric refused, rose in insurrection and slew both
+him and several magistrates of the city. There was no such direct insult
+to the person of the Emperor as at Antioch, perhaps no such prolonged
+period of defiance to authority; but the affair reflected deep disgrace
+on the cruel, childish, show-loving Eastern provincials, and if the chief
+actors in it had been ordered off to instant execution, Theodosius would
+only have acted with praiseworthy severity. But he had now been for
+twelve years lord of the world, and the madness which absolute power so
+often brings with it had begun to work in his brain. In a frenzy of rage
+at the insult offered to himself in the person of his barbarian general,
+he sent his orders from Milan (where he was staying when the tidings
+reached him) that the whole city of Thessalonica should suffer for the
+misdeeds of its ruffianly mob. The soldiers surrounded the circus where
+the citizens were assembled, watching the games and unsuspecting of ill.
+They closed the gates, marched in amongst the densely-packed spectators,
+and began their bloody work. A certain number of heads was ordered to be
+brought to the officers, as if they had been thistles or dandelions to be
+gathered out of the fields. Was it 7000 as one historian says, or 15,000,
+as another? It matters not much: the horror of the thing was the brutal
+indiscriminateness of the massacre, the utter absence of any attempt to
+separate between the innocent and the guilty, the indifference to human
+life, more worthy of Tamerlane and his pyramid of skulls than of an
+Emperor of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Penitence of Theodosius._]
+
+It is true that this bloody deed was afterwards repented of in dust and
+ashes. The humiliation and penitence of Theodosius, his self-abasement
+before the great Christian hero, St. Ambrose, and the forgiveness which
+he at last received from him, form a well-known page in church history,
+and one which I do not propose now to retrace. But I cannot hold, as
+some of the ecclesiastical historians seem to do, that the depth of the
+Emperor’s subsequent humility hides the greatness of his crime. That he
+should have been even tempted to such a monstrous abuse of his absolute
+power, much more that he should have yielded to the temptation, marks
+him out as one of the Emperors who were unfit to govern, not only as
+immeasurably below a saint like Marcus Aurelius, or a statesman like
+Trajan, but almost as fit to be classed in the same category with
+Caligula, Nero, and Commodus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We return to our more special subject, the relation between Theodosius
+and the _foederati_. Twice he was able to employ his Gothic soldiers with
+striking success in the internal struggles of the Empire. The situation
+was thus very similar to that which we have seen in our own day in our
+Indian Empire, when the Sikhs, the fierce opponents of the English Raj in
+1845, became its stalwart defenders in the terrible Mutiny of 1857.
+
+[Sidenote: _Revolt of troops in Britain, 383._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Elevation of Maximus._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Gratian’s faults._]
+
+In the year 383 a military revolt broke out in Britain against the young
+Emperor Gratian. Our island was ever the fruitful seed-plot of these
+military mutinies. The soldiers, shut up in their camps on our solitary
+moors, and deeming themselves cut off from the civilised world[60],
+probably exaggerated every hardship of their service, and welcomed any
+change which would take them southwards, were it even in the track of
+an usurper and a tyrant. Perhaps, too, there was something then as now
+in the disposition of the Celts by whom they were surrounded, and with
+whom many of them had intermarried, favourable to anarchy and fatal to
+that reverence for law and discipline which is needed to hold together
+either an army or a state. Whatever the cause, the army revolted and
+proclaimed Magnus Clemens Maximus, Emperor. He was, like Theodosius,
+a native of Spain, and though harsh and perhaps rapacious, a man of
+ability and experience, not unworthy of the purple if he had come to it
+by lawful means[61]. Gratian on his side had evidently given some real
+cause for dissatisfaction to his subjects. Ammianus, who was a good
+judge of character, says of him that ‘while the youthful down was yet
+on his cheeks he showed promise of emulating the best of the Emperors,
+if he had not given his mind too much to sport, and under the influence
+of frivolous companions followed too much the example of Commodus in
+his dissipation though not in his cruelty. He delighted to pierce the
+greatest possible number of beasts before the eyes of the people, and
+when he had given a fatal wound to each one of a hundred lions let loose
+from many doors all round the amphitheatre (not needing to hit any beast
+twice), he would exult as if he were something more than man. Thus he
+would spend whole days within these vast preserves which were called
+_vivaria_, slaying savage beasts with his multitudinous arrows. And this
+at a time when even the patient earnestness of a Marcus Aurelius would
+have been all too little for the sad necessities of the Empire[62].’
+
+[Sidenote: _383-7._]
+
+But there was another grievance besides Gratian’s love for sport, and
+that was his fondness for the barbarians. He, too, like Theodosius, had
+his petted barbarian guard, but instead of being Goths they belonged to
+the less civilised race of the Alani. We are told by another author[63]
+‘that Gratian neglected the army and preferred a few of the Alans, whom
+by lavish pay he had attracted to his service, to the old Roman soldiery,
+and was so fascinated by the companionship, and one might almost say
+friendship of these barbarians, that he sometimes on the march even
+adopted their dress. By all this he aroused the hatred of the soldiers
+against himself.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Gratian._]
+
+An Emperor of barbarians, an Emperor who was spending his days in
+shooting wild beasts while the Empire was languishing under taxes within
+and the attacks of savages from without,—that was the aspect which, with
+many noble and loveable qualities, Gratian bore to his Western subjects:
+and hence it was that when Maximus with the army of Britain landed in
+Gaul, he shook down the fabric of his power without difficulty. Gratian,
+finding himself deserted by his troops, escaped from the battle-field,
+but was overtaken and killed at Lyons.
+
+[Sidenote: _Maximus dethrones Valentinian II, 387._]
+
+For more than four years Maximus, satisfied with ruling over the three
+great Western provinces which had fallen to the share of Gratian,
+maintained at any rate the appearance of harmony with his two colleagues,
+and the CONCORDIA AUGGG was still capable of being commemorated on the
+Imperial medals. At length, in the autumn of 387, Maximus deemed that
+the time had come for grasping the whole Empire of the West. Lulling
+to sleep the suspicions of Valentinian and his mother by embassies and
+protestations of friendship, he crossed the Alps with an army and marched
+towards Aquileia, where the young Emperor was then dwelling in order to
+be as near as possible to the dominions of his friendly colleague and
+protector. Valentinian did not await the approach of his rival, but going
+down to the port of Grado, took ship and sailed for Thessalonica, his
+mother and sisters accompanying him.
+
+[Sidenote: _Valentinian’s appeal for help to Theodosius._]
+
+The Emperor and the Senate of Constantinople met the Imperial fugitives
+at Thessalonica, and discussed the present position of affairs. The
+Senate seconded the entreaties of Valentinian and his mother, and cried
+out for vengeance on the murderer of one Emperor and the despoiler of
+another. Theodosius, who was sincerely averse to war, as his detractors
+said through indolence, but more probably through that knowledge of the
+risks and miseries of war which even the most successful general cannot
+fail to acquire, spoke in favour of peace, and then of course all warlike
+views were hushed.
+
+Upon this Justina, who was the widow of two Emperors[64], and in whose
+countenance still lingered the traces of the extraordinary beauty which
+had fascinated Valentinian I, fell on her knees before Theodosius and
+besought him not to allow the murder of Gratian to remain unavenged, nor
+the family of his former benefactor to be utterly ruined. And then she
+pointed to her daughter Galla,
+
+    ‘Matre pulchra filia pulchrior,’
+
+who was bathed in tears, lamenting the misfortunes of her house. What
+the entreaties of the mother might have failed to effect, the tears of
+the daughter accomplished. Theodosius, whose wife Flaccilla had died two
+years before (385), took Galla for his second wife, and vowed to avenge
+her wrongs and replace her brother on the throne.
+
+[Sidenote: _Civil War between Theodosius and Maximus, 388._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Defeat and death of Maximus. 28 July, 388._]
+
+He was some time in preparing for the campaign, but, when it was opened,
+he conducted it with vigour and decision. His troops pressed up the Save
+valley, defeated those of Maximus in two engagements, entered Aemona
+(Laybach) in triumph, and soon stood before the walls of Aquileia,
+behind which Maximus was sheltering himself. The city was a strong and
+almost impregnable one, but a mutiny among the troops of Maximus did
+away with the necessity for a siege. The soldiers of Theodosius poured
+into the city, whose gates had been opened to them by the mutineers,
+and dragged off the usurper, barefooted, with tied hands, in slave’s
+attire, to the tribunal of Theodosius and his young brother-in-law at the
+third milestone from the city. After Theodosius had in a short harangue
+reproached him with the evil deeds which he had wrought against the Roman
+commonwealth, he handed him over to the executioner, by whom he was at
+once put to death.
+
+There can be little doubt that the rapid and successful movements of
+Theodosius in this campaign were due in part to the well-trained valour
+of his _foederati_. We have, however, a more distinct allusion to their
+services in the next civil war, which was fought six years afterwards on
+almost the same battle-ground.
+
+[Sidenote: _Valentinian II restored in the West._]
+
+[Sidenote: _His factotum Arbogast._]
+
+[Sidenote: _392. Quarrels between Valentinian and Arbogast._]
+
+On the overthrow of Maximus, Theodosius had with generous magnanimity
+handed over to Valentinian II the whole of the Western Empire, both, his
+own especial share and that which had formerly been held by his brother
+Gratian. The young Emperor was now seventeen years of age: his mother,
+Justina, had died apparently on the eve of Theodosius’s victory, and
+he governed, or tried to govern, alone. He seems to have taken up his
+residence at Trier, the defence of the Gaulish provinces being doubtless
+recognised as at this time the chief duty of an Emperor of the West.
+But the actual functions of supreme ruler were discharged, not by this
+young and somewhat pliable Emperor, but by a Frankish veteran who stood
+beside his throne, moving legions and appointing and displacing generals
+at his will. I mentioned that during the sickness of Theodosius the war
+in Thrace was successfully conducted by two Frankish lieutenants of
+Gratian, by name Bauto and Arbogast. Bauto died about the year 385, and
+from that time onwards supreme power in the dominions of Valentinian had
+been more and more accumulating itself in the hands of the other great
+Frankish general, Arbogast, a man adored by his soldiers for his valour
+and experience in war, and for his noble disdain of riches. This man was
+apparently true to the Empire, true at first in his own rough way to
+the house of Valentinian. He had followed the young Emperor to exile,
+and after the victory at Aemona it was his hand that deprived the young
+Victor, son of the usurper, of life. But knowing his infinite superiority
+in all the arts of war and government to the young Adonis who was
+nominally his master, he took no pains to conceal that superiority, and
+sometimes in the council chamber itself openly opposed and scoffed at
+the proposals of the Emperor. In short, this Frankish warrior was already
+anticipating by three centuries the attitude of the Frankish Mayors of
+the Palace towards the Merovingian monarchs. At length Valentinian,
+unable to bear the barbarian’s insolence any longer, one day when he
+was sitting on his imperial throne, summoning up as much sternness as
+he could into his boyish countenance, presented Arbogast with a written
+dismissal from his command as _Magister Equitum_. With calm contempt
+Arbogast tore the paper in pieces. ‘You never gave me this command,’
+said he, ‘nor will you be able to take it from me.’ Valentinian drew a
+sword against the general as he turned to depart, but the attendant to
+whom it belonged checked him from using it. Hearing the struggle Arbogast
+returned and asked what the Emperor had been trying to do. ‘To slay
+myself,’ moaned the miserable Valentinian, ‘because although Emperor I
+have no power[65].’
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Valentinian II, 15 May, 392._]
+
+From this day there was open enmity between Valentinian and his Master of
+the Horse: and not long after, when the young Emperor was bathing in the
+Rhone, near Vienne, some of the servants of Arbogast, in the absence of
+his body-guard who had gone away to dinner, rushed upon him and strangled
+him. They then tied a handkerchief round his neck and hung him to a tree,
+that it might appear that he had committed suicide. It was generally
+understood, however, that the death of Valentinian was in truth the deed
+of Arbogast.
+
+[Sidenote: _Eugenius Emperor, 392-394._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Galla, 394._]
+
+The Frankish general, who durst not shock the prejudices of the Roman
+world by himself assuming the purple, hung that dishonoured robe upon the
+shoulders of a rhetorician, a confidant, and almost a dependent of his
+own, named Eugenius. This man, like most of the scholars and rhetoricians
+of the day, had not abjured the old faith of Hellas. As Arbogast also
+was a heathen, though worshipping Teutonic rather than Olympian gods,
+this last revolution looked like a recurrence to the days of Julian,
+and threatened the hardly-won supremacy of Christianity. Thus not only
+the sad voice of his wife Galla pleading for vengeance on her brother’s
+murderers, but, even more, the pious exhortations of all Christian
+bishops called on Theodosius to rescue the Western Empire from the hands
+of the sophist and the barbarian. Yet his preparations had to be long
+and careful, for he was aware that in Arbogast he would meet a general
+who knew as much of the art of war as himself, perhaps we might say
+that he should meet the greatest captain of the age. He left not Thrace
+till June, 394, nearly two years after the death of Valentinian, and
+meanwhile, on the very eve of his departure his young wife Galla died,
+leaving a little daughter, whose name afterwards was famous in the story
+of the Empire, Galla Placidia.
+
+[Sidenote: _Theodosius marches against Eugenius. 394._]
+
+Giving but one day to sorrow and the next to vengeance, Theodosius
+marched north-westwards, as before, up the valley of the Save, and to
+the city of Aemona. Not there did he meet his foes, but at a place about
+thirty miles off, half-way between Aemona and Aquileia, where the Julian
+Alps are crossed, and where a little stream called the Frigidus (now the
+Wipbach) burst suddenly from a limestone hill. Here, then, the battle
+was joined between Eugenius with his Frankish patron and Theodosius with
+his 20,000 Gothic _foederati_[66] and the rest of the army of the East.
+Gainas, Saul, Bacurius, Alaric were the chief leaders of the Teutonic
+troops.
+
+[Sidenote: _Battle of the Frigidus, 5 and 6 Sept. 394._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Eugenius and Arbogast._]
+
+The first day of battle fell heavily on the _foederati_ of Theodosius,
+half of whom were left dead upon the field. It seemed as if the West
+were going once more to triumph over the East, as if heathenism might
+even once more gain the ascendant over Christianity. That night,
+however, in prayer Theodosius had a vision of the Apostles John and
+Philip, who cheered him on with the assurance of victory. Next day
+Theodosius succeeded in detaching part of the army of his rival from
+their allegiance; and even the elements seemed eager to aid his victory.
+The impetuous _Bora_, a wind well known in that region, sprang up from
+the hills in the rear of his army and carried their arrows and their
+javelins with resistless force into the ranks of the enemy, whose own
+missiles recoiled helplessly on themselves. The battle was won after a
+terrible struggle. Eugenius was taken prisoner and carried bound into the
+presence of Theodosius, who upbraided him with his heathenism and his
+share in the murder of Valentinian. While he was grovelling at the proud
+conqueror’s feet and begging for mercy, a soldier cut off his head and
+carried it round the field of battle on a pole to show the vanquished
+army that their Emperor was slain. Arbogast wandered about for some days
+among the rugged mountain-defiles, and then fell upon his sword and
+perished.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Theodosius, 17 Jan. 395._]
+
+Theodosius, who was still in the prime of life, had now indeed ‘the rule
+of the world,’ without a rival or a colleague except his own boyish sons.
+The Church and the federated Goths, two of the most powerful forces in
+the Empire, were both devotedly attached to him; and the Provincials,
+though groaning under the weight of the taxes which he imposed, feared,
+and perhaps admired him. Had his life been prolonged as it well might
+have been for twenty or thirty years longer, many things might have gone
+differently in the history of the world. But, little more than four
+months after the victory of the Frigidus, Theodosius died of dropsy at
+Milan, his constitution being prematurely worn out by the hardships of
+his last campaign, and possibly by the high feasting and revelry which
+had resounded through his palace at Constantinople. He had probably not
+yet completed his fiftieth year.
+
+[Sidenote: _Character of Theodosius._]
+
+The character of Theodosius is one of the most perplexing in history.
+The Church historians have hardly a word of blame for him except in the
+matter of the massacre of Thessalonica, and that, as has been said, seems
+to be almost atoned for in their eyes by its perpetrator’s penitent
+submission to ecclesiastical censure. On the other hand, the heathen
+historians, represented by Zosimus, condemn in the most unmeasured
+terms his indolence, his love of pleasure, his pride, and hint at
+the scandalous immorality of his life. Varying a similar saying with
+reference to Constantine, we might say that he who believes all the evil
+that is said of Theodosius by Socrates, and all the good that is said of
+him by Zosimus, will not go far wrong. But this takes us only a little
+way, for the blame and the praise are both infinitesimal.
+
+He had one great work to do, the reconciliation of the Goths to the
+Empire, and he did that work well. It is perhaps unfair to judge of it by
+the slenderness of its permanent results, since his early death may have
+been the chief cause of its failure. But he was certainly passionate,
+egotistic, cruel. He spared not the pockets of his subjects, and his
+reign, like a heavy wheat-crop, exhausted the energies of his Empire. It
+is the fashion to call him the Great, and we may admit that he has as
+good a right to that title as Louis XIV, a monarch whom in some respects
+he pretty closely resembles. But it seems to me that it would be safer
+to withhold this title from both sovereigns, and to call them, not the
+Great, but the _Magnificent_.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE V.
+
+ALARIC.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Arcadius and Honorius, sons of Theodosius._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their incapacity._]
+
+On the death of Theodosius (395) his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius,
+aged respectively eighteen and ten, succeeded to ‘the rule of the world,’
+Arcadius dwelling at Constantinople and ruling the Eastern portion, while
+the Western fell to the share of Honorius, who at this time generally
+dwelt at Milan. Arcadius died in the year 408, at the age of thirty-one;
+Honorius in 423, at the age of thirty-nine. These two men were thus
+nominally at the head of human affairs during some of the most profoundly
+interesting and important events that have happened in the history of the
+world; yet few men have ever by their own force of character or strength
+of intellect exercised less influence on the destinies of the human race.
+Theodosius, with all his faults, interests the student of his reign: he
+was brilliant, forceful, and he makes a mark on the history of his time.
+The dulness of his sons’ characters is so portentous, that after the
+lapse of a millennium and a half the Muse of History still yawns at the
+remembrance of them. Arcadius had a beautiful Frankish wife, and left a
+son of artistic temperament, and four pious daughters. Honorius married
+his deceased wife’s sister and left no family, but was fond of keeping
+pigeons. These are pretty nearly all the facts that it is possible to
+ascertain or to remember out of the drizzling dulness of their personal
+history.
+
+[Sidenote: _Administration of Rufinus and Stilicho._]
+
+Theodosius, who probably saw the weakness of character of his sons, and
+who was leaving them at an age when even strong and capable natures would
+have required much help and guidance, entrusted the guardianship of the
+lads, and the virtual regency of the Empire, to Rufinus and Stilicho. The
+former, with the rank of Praetorian Prefect, administered the realm of
+Arcadius; the latter, as _Magister Utriusque Militiae_, governed the army
+and the people of Honorius.
+
+These two men resembled one another in one quality—an inordinate love
+of money, whether justly or unjustly acquired. In all other respects
+their characters were utterly dissimilar. Stilicho, though grasping and
+perhaps somewhat coarse-fibred, was a hero and a patriot; Rufinus (whom
+we unfortunately know only by the descriptions of his bitter enemies) may
+have had some administrative ability, but must have been a bad specimen
+even of the corrupt bureaucracy of Constantinople.
+
+Dissimilar as was the character of the two men, so also was their origin
+and training. Stilicho was apparently of pure Teutonic extraction, the
+son of a Vandal chief who had commanded some barbarian auxiliaries in the
+army of the Emperor Valens. His tall and handsome presence had commended
+him to the favour of Serena, the favourite niece and trusted counsellor
+of Theodosius. His marriage with so near a relative of the Emperor
+naturally led to his speedy promotion. His employment on an embassy
+to the Persian king was followed by high military command. He showed
+indisputable talents for war in several campaigns against the barbarians,
+and, some years before the death of Theodosius, was raised to the
+highest of all military dignities—that of _Magister Utriusque Militiae_
+(Commander-in-Chief of Infantry and Cavalry).
+
+Of the early life of Rufinus we know but little. He was born at Elusa, a
+little town in the south-west corner of Gaul. He went to Constantinople,
+and there, by his obsequiousness, his perseverance, and doubtless also
+by his aptitude for the work of administration, succeeded in climbing
+from step to step of the official ladder. One or two old and faithful
+servants of the Empire (Tatianus and Proculus) who stood above him in
+rank, were cast down by his well-timed accusations of disloyalty, and
+at length the obscure Gaulish Provincial blazed forth to the world as
+Praetorian Prefect of the East—one of the wealthiest men in the Empire,
+a man who aspired to wear the diadem himself as colleague of Arcadius,
+and to obtain the Emperor’s hand in marriage for his daughter. Thus while
+Stilicho’s might be said to be the typical career of a robust, handsome,
+and warlike Teuton in the service of the Empire, the career of Rufinus
+was the equally typical career of a clever, pushing, and unscrupulous
+Provincial.
+
+[Sidenote: _Divergence between East and West._]
+
+Between the two administrators of the realm—Rufinus and Stilicho—there
+was no cordiality, no chance of well-concerted action for the good of
+the Empire. In fact, quite independently of the personal characters of
+the two men, the interests of the two divisions of the Empire were now
+beginning manifestly to diverge. The older Rome looked down upon the new
+Rome by the Bosphorus as a mere Greek city, the home of sophists and
+chatterers; while Constantinople regarded the city of the Tiber, with
+its mouldering palaces, its desolate Campagna, its still half-heathen
+Senate, as a great stranded hulk, unfit any longer to bear the precious
+freight of Empire. This divergence between the hopes and wishes of the
+East and West, a divergence which was often on the point of becoming
+actual hostility, was wider for the first fifteen years after the death
+of Theodosius than for a considerable time before or after that interval,
+and promoted not a little the success of the barbarian movement against
+the Roman State.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric King of the Visigoths._]
+
+That movement began very shortly after Theodosius was laid in his
+grave. It was in all probability in the spring of the year 395 that the
+Visigoths in Moesia raised the young Alaric upon a shield, and with
+joyful shouts acclaimed him as their king. We have already noticed this
+young Gothic chief as commanding a troop in the army of Theodosius at
+the battle of the Frigidus, and that is in fact all that we know about
+him up to this date, except that he was born (probably between 360 and
+370) in the island of Peuce at the mouth of the Danube, and that he was
+either himself surnamed Baltha (the Bold), or belonged to a clan of kings
+or chieftains who bore that name. As the Gothic historian says: ‘As soon
+as Alaric was created king, deliberating with his people he persuaded
+them rather by their own labour to seek for kingdoms than quietly to
+lie down in subjection to strangers.’ In other words he decided, and
+persuaded them to decide, to abandon the easy but inglorious position
+of _foederati_, and cutting themselves loose from the old and decaying
+Empire, to hew out new realms for themselves with their own trusty
+broadswords. Towards this decision he was no doubt partly guided by what
+he had himself seen, when in the Imperial service, of the weakness of
+the legions, the unwarlike character of the Provincials of the Empire,
+the oppressions of the tax-gatherers which caused even the barbarians to
+seem welcome as deliverers from their yoke; above all by what he, and
+every officer of rank in the Roman army, knew of the discord and jealousy
+between the two chief ministers of the Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: _395._]
+
+The first blows of Alaric and his Goths were struck at the Eastern
+Empire. This was natural enough, since they were themselves settled
+within it: but there was another reason for the choice. The army which
+Theodosius had led with him across the Julian Alps seems not to have been
+dismissed to its Eastern cantonments during the few months between the
+battle of the Frigidus and his death. It and the troops of Eugenius were
+now all collected in the north of Italy under the orders of Stilicho,
+who was thus in another than the official sense _Magister Utriusque
+Militiae_, since both the conquering and the conquered army of the late
+campaign received the watchword from him. A singular position certainly,
+and one which excuses some things otherwise difficult to justify in the
+conduct of Arcadius and his minister.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric strikes at the Eastern Empire._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Stilicho forbidden to repel the invasion._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric in Greece._]
+
+Alaric, then, with his Gothic followers marched first towards
+Constantinople. Perhaps he had some hopes of taking the city by surprise,
+but if so he was disappointed. Rufinus, who, Provincial as he was,
+professed a certain fondness for the barbarians and imitated their dress
+and accoutrements, seems to have sought an interview with the Gothic
+king, and suggested to him that instead of undertaking a hopeless siege
+he would do well to turn his steps southwards, where he would reap
+abundance of spoil from the still undevastated plains of Greece. Alaric
+accepted the suggestion, and marched through Macedonia into Thessaly.
+There, however, his course was stayed for a while by the arrival of
+Stilicho, who, loyally fulfilling the behest of the dying Theodosius,
+had come with an army to deliver the invaded Empire from its foe. Before
+manœuvres had ceased and hard fighting had begun, there came a strange,
+and at first sight incomprehensible, message from the Eastern Court:
+‘Let Stilicho withdraw the legions of Honorius within the limits of
+his master’s Empire, and let the legions of the East be sent to their
+proper quarters at Constantinople.’ Loyally, but sadly, Stilicho obeyed
+the command, and thus the campaign of 395 closed, leaving Alaric in
+undisputed possession of the Greek peninsula. No Leonidas with his Three
+Hundred defended now Thermopylae, not even the easily held Isthmus of
+Corinth was occupied by troops. All over the sacred places of Grecian
+story, Delphi, Corinth, Argos, Sparta, the tall barbarians swarmed.
+Only Athens seems to have escaped comparatively unharmed, a deliverance
+which the heathen historian[67] attributes to the fact that when Alaric
+approached the city he saw Athene Promachus, in such guise as she is
+represented in her statue, going round about its towers, and Achilles,
+the hero, such as Homer painted him in his wrath for the death of
+Patroclus, standing before the walls. Those who doubt the truth of these
+apparitions may accept the theory that the Acropolis was too strong to be
+taken, and that Alaric, who was no mere barbarous destroyer, was induced,
+partly by a heavy ransom and partly by reverence for her old renown, to
+refrain from sacking a city which was illustrious and venerable rather
+than wealthy or strategically important.
+
+[Sidenote: _March of the recalled troops to Constantinople._]
+
+Meanwhile the troops which had been ordered to Constantinople, and which
+were commanded by Gainas the Goth, had done a strange and fearful deed.
+They loved Stilicho, and cursed the order issued by the officials at
+Constantinople which parted them from his standards. Everywhere, as they
+marched through the Empire they heard execrations against the avarice and
+arrogance of the Gaulish upstart, who presumed, forsooth, to put himself
+forward as a suitable colleague for the Emperor. And, most important of
+all, their leader, Gainas the Goth, aspired to play at Constantinople the
+same part which Stilicho the Vandal was playing at Milan. The soldiers
+said to one another that when Rufinus met them at Constantinople he
+should have a reception that he little expected.
+
+[Sidenote: _The review._]
+
+When they reached the Capital they were drawn up in a great plain near
+the city, and Arcadius, with Rufinus by his side, came thither to review
+them. The two stood upon a high platform, conspicuous to all, and those
+who were nearest could see Rufinus plucking the Emperor’s mantle and
+evidently desiring him to fulfil some promise which he had made and to
+utter some oration to the army. In this oration, could it have been
+delivered, the simple-minded Arcadius, who would have done anything
+which his minister commanded, was to have presented Rufinus to the army
+as his colleague in the Empire. Then, had the programme been fulfilled,
+the soldiers would have clashed their swords upon their shields and
+shouted ‘Ave Imperator’: the minister would have come forward and offered
+them a liberal donative, and Rufinus Augustus would have struck his
+coins commemorating his Justice, his Temperance, and the Concord of the
+Emperors.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Rufinus._]
+
+Such was the programme of the day’s proceedings, but what actually
+occurred was very different from this. While the promised oration was
+still lingering on the lips of the scared and helpless Emperor, the army
+stretched forth both its wings and folded the high tribunal in a narrower
+and ever narrower embrace. Threatening gestures were made, and murmurs,
+not of acclamation, were heard. Soon the dreadful truth flashed upon
+Rufinus that he was surrounded, not by friends eager to be his subjects,
+but by enemies thirsting for his blood. A soldier stepped forth from the
+ranks, and mounting the platform, thrust him through with his sword,
+saying, ‘With this sword Stilicho strikes thee.’ Then the barbarians and
+the barbarised Roman soldiers carried the head of Rufinus round the city
+on a pole, strewed his limbs in fragments over the fields, and showed to
+every passer-by the dead hand opening and closing upon imaginary coins,
+while his mock courtiers shouted ‘Give, give to the Insatiable.’
+
+Even the heavy soul of Arcadius must have felt some stirrings of horror
+and resentment at such a tragedy enacted in his own sacred presence, but
+he passed at once under the dominion of other masters whose fortunes
+we cannot here follow. Gainas the Goth, Eutropius the Eunuch, Eudoxia
+the beautiful Empress, daughter of the Frankish general Bauto, kept up
+a vivid game of Court intrigue, and disputed with varying success for
+the chief place in that empty chamber which represented the mind of the
+Emperor.
+
+[Sidenote: _396. Second campaign of Stilicho against Alaric, 396._]
+
+We return to Alaric and his invasion of the Peloponnesus. Any dreams
+which he may have nourished of establishing his kingdom by the banks
+of the Eurotas or Cephissus were dispelled by the second appearance of
+Stilicho, who, this time apparently at the earnest request of Arcadius,
+brought the army of Honorius for the deliverance of Greece. No great
+battle was fought, but Stilicho, who was evidently a great master of
+strategy, penned up his antagonist in the valleys of Arcadia. From this
+difficult position, however, he allowed him to escape, whether through
+mere carelessness, through fear of driving a powerful foe to despair, by
+a tacit agreement that if liberated he should at once evacuate Greece,
+or from what other motive it is impossible now to say. The enemies
+of Stilicho always asserted that both on this and other occasions he
+refrained from crushing Alaric when he had the power to do so, in order
+that he, as the only general who could successfully cope with him, might
+never find his services superfluous.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric as Roman governor of Illyricum. 396-400._]
+
+On evacuating Greece, Alaric with his Goths did not relapse into the
+position of a Fritigern or an Athanaric. Another plan for the future had
+now opened itself before him. As the time was not yet come for conquering
+kingdoms he would accept once more, in seeming, the position of a captain
+of _foederati_, but in such circumstances as to be still practically
+independent of the Empire. The part of the Prefecture of Illyricum which
+had fallen to the share of Arcadius consisted in its northern portion
+of the so-called Diocese of Dacia, nearly corresponding to the present
+kingdoms of Servia and Bosnia. Over this eastern Illyricum Alaric was
+placed as governor by the ministers of Arcadius. The precise official
+title which he bore is not mentioned. He may have been _Vicarius Daciae_
+or _Dux Daciae et Moesiae Primae_: but his power is undoubted. For the
+next four or five years he wielded all the enormous powers, both civil
+and military, of a Roman Imperial governor. He enlisted recruits, he
+managed arsenals, he collected taxes, though what proportion of the taxes
+so collected found its way into the Treasury of Byzantium no historian
+has told us.
+
+[Sidenote: _Advantages of this position._]
+
+The especial advantage to Alaric of his position in this corner of
+Illyricum was that it enabled him to profit to the full by the discord
+existing between the two sections of the Empire, and at his pleasure to
+threaten either. He could with almost equal ease move southwards upon
+Macedon and Thrace and threaten Constantinople, or north-westwards to the
+Julian Alps, and so descend into Italy. This advantage is emphatically
+alluded to by a contemporary poet[68], who represents Stilicho as saying
+of him—
+
+    ‘Discord ’twixt East and West and mutual wrong,
+    Not his own strength, has shielded him so long;
+    While he, deceitful, pledged his faith to both,
+    And sold to each by turns his perjured oath.’
+
+Yet doubtless during these years of repose his thoughts were turning with
+increased frequency to the West rather than to the East. He knew, none
+better, the matchless strength of the situation of Constantinople. He
+suspected, if he did not know, the comparative weakness of Rome. Moesia
+and Thrace had been wandered over for years by the wasting bands of his
+countrymen, while Italy, so long the wealthy mistress of the world, was
+still unravaged. Above all he had already begun to hear a voice—like that
+which other makers of history, beings such as Mohammed, Joan of Arc,
+Savonarola listened to—telling them of great deeds set before them which
+they should one day accomplish. And this voice—call it by what name we
+may, it is vouched for by contemporary evidence _before_ its prediction
+was accomplished—said ever in his ears, ‘Alaric, delay not. Thou shalt
+penetrate to the City’[69]—the awful and still inviolate majesty of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric’s first invasion of Italy, 400-403._]
+
+At length in the year 400 the thunder-cloud burst. Alaric, with the
+whole nation which obeyed him, the women and children in the great
+Gothic waggons, the warriors on their war-horses, moved slowly up the
+valley of the Save, crossed the Julian Alps, and by the way which he had
+learned when he rode in the train of Theodosius, descended upon Italy.
+At the same time, there is reason to think, another troop of Goths,
+possibly belonging to the Ostrogothic section of the people, entered
+Italy under the leadership of Radagaisus, but of their movements we have
+no information, and even the fact of their invasion is not generally
+admitted by historians.
+
+Of the three or four years (400-403) that Alaric spent in Italy during
+this invasion, we have the slenderest and most tantalisingly imperfect
+information from our authorities. We can say certainly that he did not
+reach Rome, probably did not cross the Apennines. There are dim rumours
+of a battle, a Roman defeat, somewhere near Aquileia. Then there is an
+inexplicable delay. During the whole of the year 401 Alaric appears to
+linger in Venetia and the valley of the Po, while Stilicho is fighting
+with some enemies (possibly Radagaisus and his Ostrogoths) in Raetia, and
+drawing in troops from the Rhine, and even from Britain, for the defence
+of the menaced capital. It was at this time that the Twentieth Legion was
+withdrawn from the cantonments which it had for centuries occupied at
+Chester, but to which it never returned.
+
+[Sidenote: _Honorius retires to Ravenna._]
+
+[Sidenote: _402-752._]
+
+The Emperor Honorius seems to have been besieged by Alaric either at
+Milan or the not distant city of Asta. If thus menaced, he at any rate
+sustained no actual injury; but the shock to his Imperial nerves of
+seeing the yellow-haired barbarians under the walls of his city had been
+so severe that he migrated to Ravenna, which strong city, effectually
+sheltered from every land-attack by the network of rivers and canals
+which surrounded it, was from henceforth for three centuries and a half
+the regular residence of Roman Emperors, Ostrogothic Kings, and Byzantine
+Exarchs.
+
+[Sidenote: _Battle of Pollentia. 4 Apr. 402._]
+
+At last, at Eastertide in the year 402, the armies of Stilicho and Alaric
+met in battle at Pollentia, a city of what is now Piedmont, about
+twenty miles south-east of Turin. The accounts of the battle are very
+conflicting, but it was probably a defeat, though not a decisive defeat,
+of the Goths. The advantage was gained by a piece of sharp practice which
+was hardly worthy of the troops of a Christian Emperor. It was Good
+Friday, and Alaric—an Arian, but a zealous Christian—was celebrating
+the great event of Calvary in the usual manner, and not dreaming of
+battles, when one of Stilicho’s officers, an Alan and a heathen, named
+Saulus, led an impetuous charge of cavalry against the Gothic army, and
+compelled it to turn from prayer to fighting. Saulus himself fell at the
+very beginning of the engagement, and the cavalry wavered; but Stilicho
+and the legions of the centre restored the battle, and, perhaps, won
+the victory. But that the barbarian should have been forced against his
+will to fight on the most solemn fast-day of the Christian calendar was
+accounted a blot on the fair fame of Stilicho, and was not forgotten when
+the day of reckoning came between him and his enemies at the Imperial
+Court.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric retires from Italy, 403._]
+
+[Sidenote: _406._]
+
+Another defeat, a doubtful defeat, of the Goths at Verona seems to have
+ended the war. In the year 403 Alaric made his way back out of Italy,
+probably over the Brenner Pass. He had not this time ‘penetrated to
+the City’: he had lost some of his treasure, the spoils of preceding
+years, and, according to one account, his wife even had fallen into
+the enemy’s hands. In itself the expedition had proved fruitless and
+inglorious enough, but it was the parent of mighty results; for doubtless
+in consequence of the withdrawal of the Imperial forces from the Rhine,
+a multitude of barbarous hordes—Vandals, Alans, and Suevi—poured from
+Germany into Gaul, and that fair province, the keystone of the arch of
+the Western Prefecture, was henceforward virtually lost to the Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: _Invasion of Radagaisus, 405._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Radagaisus shut up near Fiesole._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Radagaisus slain and his army sold into slavery._]
+
+Two years after Alaric’s departure from Italy, his confederate Radagaisus
+returned to it, having 200,000 Goths (probably Ostrogoths) in his
+train. This man was spoken of with terror as ‘by far the most savage
+of all the ancient or modern enemies of Rome.’ He was a Pagan, and a
+rumour was spread abroad that he had vowed to offer to his country’s
+savage gods the blood of the whole Roman people as an acceptable
+drink-offering. The impending heathenism without gave a despairing
+courage to the yet unsubdued heathenism within. The little knot of
+senators and their clients who still adhered to the ancient faith (which
+died out more slowly in Rome than anywhere else) dared to lift up their
+voices and openly assert that all these troubles were coming upon
+the State because she had left her old moorings, and because Jupiter
+Capitolinus and his family of gods were no longer receiving their
+ancient honours. However, there was not time for this party to effect
+a religious counter-revolution before deliverance came. If Radagaisus
+actually appeared under the walls of the City (which is doubtful), he
+soon departed and marched northwards into the rich land of Etruria.
+Stilicho followed him with an army, in which Uldin the Hun and Sarus
+the Goth were conspicuous figures. Once again he played that clever
+strategic game which he had probably learnt from Theodosius, and which
+he had already twice successfully practised against Alaric in Greece and
+in Italy. He ‘shut him up,’ we are told, in that circle of mountains
+which surrounds Fiesole and looks down on Florence. Skilfully-posted
+detachments of troops prevented the savage invaders from piercing at any
+point through the iron girdle that encompassed them; and this result
+being satisfactorily attained, of course the hugeness of the host only
+hastened the inevitable surrender. While the wild horde of Ostrogoths
+were starving in famished Fiesole, the soldiers of Stilicho were living
+in comfort—feasting, gaming, singing their rough camp-songs—but a
+sufficient number of them ever watching that none of the barbarians
+should creep over the mountains and escape. Before long the end came.
+Radagaisus, trying to steal forth by himself from the trap into which he
+and his followers had fallen, stumbled upon one of Stilicho’s outposts,
+was brought before his conqueror, and, after a few days’ interval, was
+put to death. The multitude which had accompanied him into Italy, with
+proud dreams of conquest and plunder, surrendering themselves at last
+to their watchful enemies, were all sold as slaves. So glutted was the
+market by their numbers that thousands of them fetched no more than an
+_aureus_ (twelve shillings) apiece. But so long had the brave Teutons
+delayed their surrender, that even the food which their new masters gave
+them came, in the majority of cases, too late to save their lives; and
+the greedy purchaser found in thousands of instances that his _aureus_
+procured for him only the obligation to bury a starved-out Ostrogoth.
+
+[Sidenote: _Nature of the manœuvre by which Radagaisus was defeated._]
+
+The fact that both Theodosius and the captain who had been formed in his
+school practised so often and so triumphantly this manœuvre of ‘shutting
+up’ the Goths suggests a question as to the reason of its success.
+We must remember that the armies which followed Fritigern, Alaric,
+and Radagaisus were, for the most part, _nation-armies_, encumbered
+with women and children, old men and other non-combatants, for whose
+conveyance a long train of waggons was needed. The Goths had no doubt
+some horses, since we hear of their cavalry, but they do not seem to have
+been essentially an equestrian nation; and their cavalry evidently lacked
+rapidity and nimbleness of movement, which was the cause of their defeat
+by the Huns.
+
+[Sidenote: _408._]
+
+So long as they could confine themselves to the great plains of the
+Danube and the Po, the overpowering numbers of this human torrent made
+them terrible and victorious; and even the waggons were useful, since
+when formed in square they made a rough but safe encampment. But when
+the time came for this nation-army to penetrate from one river-system
+to another, to cross the soaring range of the Balkans or the Apennines,
+then their difficulties began. Their deficiency of light cavalry
+prevented them from reconnoitring well their ground, and obtaining
+(in those mapless days) the much-needed information as to the easiest
+passes and the most fruitful valleys. Soon there would be stragglers
+from the main host, and then petty and harassing skirmishes to defend
+those stragglers. The great cumbrous waggons would stick in morasses.
+There would be night-alarms, and in the stampede of cattle and flying
+men, many would be dashed down precipitous ravines or swallowed up in
+swollen rivers. By gentle but judicious pressure the Imperial general
+would succeed in forcing the unwieldy procession into some bay among the
+mountains carefully selected beforehand, whence exit for heavily armed
+warriors, for horses and for waggons was only possible by two or three
+well-defined passes. Then, if he could only keep strict watch enough, his
+task was accomplished. He would station his bravest soldiers, Huns very
+likely, or even Gothic _foederati_ on whose fidelity he could depend,
+at the mouths of these passes, and wait for hunger to do its swift work
+upon the cattle, upon the little children, upon the women; till at length
+thousands of brave men who longed for nothing so much as the opportunity
+to die fighting, found even this denied them, and had to surrender
+themselves and be sold as slaves to cultivate the lands of some Roman
+lord whose dainty life one blow from a Gothic fist would have at once
+annihilated.
+
+This picture is chiefly an imaginary one[70], but those who remember the
+terrible scenes which marked the destruction of the British army in the
+Khyber Pass will, I think, recognise its probable truth.
+
+We pass over three years and come to 408. Honorius, who was aged
+twenty-three, had now been for thirteen years the nominal ruler of the
+West. During the whole of that time the administration of affairs and
+the supreme command of armies had been in the hands of Stilicho, who,
+notwithstanding some blunders and some crimes, had upon the whole proved
+himself equal to the Herculean task which the weight of the falling
+Empire had brought upon him, and had certainly by his military genius
+marked himself out as the only champion fit to contend successfully
+with Alaric. This champion, through a sinister combination of fatuity,
+intolerance, and spite, was now struck down by the Emperor himself.
+
+[Sidenote: _Revolt of Constantine in Britain, 407._]
+
+[Sidenote: _408. Negotiations between Stilicho and Alaric._]
+
+The circumstances of the Empire were more than ever difficult and
+perplexing. The usual British pretender to the purple had appeared in the
+shape of a private soldier named Constantine, whom (chiefly on account
+of his distinguished name) the legions still remaining in Britain had
+hailed as Imperator, and under whose command they had crossed over into
+Gaul to contend for such fragments of that wealthy province as still
+remained Roman, amid the generally pervading swarm of Franks, Vandals,
+Alans, and Alamanni. In the East the relations with Arcadius had been
+growing steadily worse for years. The present subject of contention
+was a claim—a preposterous claim as it seems to me—on the part of the
+Western Empire for the possession of the whole instead of a mere half
+of the Prefecture of Illyricum. In support of this claim Alaric, who
+seems to have been in frequent, almost confidential, communication with
+Stilicho ever since his last invasion of Italy, had been engaged by that
+minister to commence a joint invasion of the Eastern Empire. The project
+was, however, abandoned owing to the persuasions of Serena, the wife of
+Stilicho, who appears in all good faith to have exerted her influence
+with her husband and her Imperial cousins in order to prevent the
+outbreak of war between Arcadius and Honorius. But Alaric, dissatisfied
+with such a termination of the affair which left him and his followers
+without their stipulated guerdon, suddenly appeared at Aemona (Laybach)
+in a threatening attitude, and demanded compensation for the trouble
+and expense to which he had been put in preparing for the abandoned
+expedition.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric’s claim for compensation._]
+
+This extraordinary claim was brought by Stilicho before the Senate at
+Rome, and was supported by his own voice and by an easily procured
+letter from Honorius. Against such powerful advocates who could plead?
+The Conscript Fathers decided that 4000 pounds weight of gold (£160,000
+sterling) should be paid over to Alaric in consideration of his not
+making war on either portion of the Empire. One Senator alone, a man of
+high rank named Lampadius, uttered an indignant exclamation[71], ‘This
+is no peace, but a selling of ourselves into slavery’; but fearing
+punishment for his boldness, when the Senate was broken up he took refuge
+in a neighbouring church, the sanctity of whose asylum seems to have
+preserved him from punishment[72].
+
+[Sidenote: _Danger of Stilicho’s position._]
+
+It might seem that a minister who could thus impose his will on Emperor
+and Senate could do anything, but in fact the position of Stilicho was
+already undermined. His daughter Maria, wife of the Emperor, had died,
+and the docile Honorius had acquiesced in the command to marry her
+sister Thermantia; but it seems possible to discern in his feeble soul
+some faint struggles of revolt against the yoke which the Stilichonian
+family, especially his mother-in-law, Serena, imposed upon him. In the
+legions, the regular Roman part of the army, there was an increasing
+feeling of bitterness against the favours shown, doubtless deservedly,
+to the Teutonic _foederati_. ‘Count Stilicho,’ they said one to another,
+‘is after all a Vandal by birth, Sarus is a Goth, Uldin is a Hun. All
+the high commands are being monopolised by men whose fathers were
+skin-clothed barbarians. We are Romans, the sons of the comrades of
+Romulus, scions of the race that has conquered the world, yet we are
+nothing in our own land.’ Side by side with this military discontent,
+there was also ecclesiastical dissatisfaction. Stilicho, if not actually
+an Arian, pretty certainly threw his influence into the scale against the
+persecuting edicts and civil disabilities which the orthodox party were
+endeavouring to persuade the Emperor to hurl at the heretics. A rumour
+was also spread abroad—the truth or the origin of which it is impossible
+now to ascertain—that his son Eucherius shared that devotion to the old
+idolatry which, as has been said, lingered on so long among the nobility
+of Rome. Whatever the truth of that rumour may have been, another
+report which was industriously brought under the notice of Honorius,
+that Stilicho was scheming to secure the diadem for his son, was almost
+certainly unfounded. In point of fact the great minister had shown
+singular moderation in reference to the advancement of this son, who at
+this time held only the unimportant office of _Tribunus Notariorum_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Arcadius, 1 May, 408._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Honorius in the camp at Ticinum._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Mutiny at Ticinum._]
+
+Such was already the thunderous state of the atmosphere of the Court
+when news reached Ravenna of the death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius.
+Both Honorius and Stilicho seem to have desired the office of guardian
+to the young Theodosius, son of Arcadius, and to have proposed to go
+to Constantinople to claim it. Stilicho had not much difficulty in
+dissuading the timid and parsimonious Honorius from the dangers and
+expense of the journey, but he could not allay the suspicions which his
+own eagerness for the office had excited, that he was again striving in
+an underhand way to procure either the Eastern or the Western diadem
+for the young Pagan, Eucherius. There was a certain officer of the
+Imperial guard named Olympius, ‘a man who, under the guise of devotion to
+Christianity, concealed every kind of wickedness,’ who was perpetually
+whispering into the Emperor’s ear the danger to religion from this
+ambition of Stilicho. A camp had been formed at Ticinum (Pavia), for the
+soldiers who were to march into Gaul to quell the revolt of Constantine.
+To this camp, which seems to have contained a large preponderance of
+Roman-born soldiers, Honorius set forth accompanied by Olympius; and
+Stilicho, who had thus allowed his most useful instrument to be purloined
+from him, lingered in a curious state of irresolution and inactivity with
+his _foederati_ round him at Bologna. Soon the news came of a terrible
+mutiny of the troops at Ticinum. Olympius had been ingratiating himself
+with the soldiers in every possible way, visiting those who were sick,
+and on every occasion letting fall words of sympathy for their hardships,
+and indignation at the partiality which constantly postponed their
+interests to those of the barbarian favourites of Stilicho. These hints,
+coming from an officer of the Imperial guard and a manifest favourite of
+the Emperor, had produced their natural effect. There had been what in
+Spanish politics is called a _pronunciamento_. The soldiers had risen in
+rebellion, slain four officers of the highest rank in the army and four
+heads of departments in the State, put the magistrates to flight, and
+held a carnival of blood in the city, robbing and murdering at their will.
+
+[Sidenote: _Stilicho arrested, and put to death._]
+
+At first the news ran that Honorius himself had been killed in the
+tumult, and then the _foederati_ at Bologna urged, and Stilicho
+consented, that they should at once march to Ticinum and avenge his
+death. Soon, however, a correcter version of the affair was received.
+Honorius was not dead, but had been paraded up and down the streets of
+the city by Olympius, in a short military cloak and without a diadem,
+endeavouring to persuade the soldiers to return to their obedience. In
+this he had at length succeeded. The mutiny had been quelled, but the
+authors of it had gained their end. All the more powerful friends of
+Stilicho at Ticinum had been treacherously slain, and it was now deemed
+safe to issue an order for the apprehension of Stilicho himself. The
+officers of the _foederati_, when the designs of the Court were apparent,
+naturally wished to defend themselves and their great general by force,
+but he refused to take any part in such a civil war, ‘not deeming it
+honourable or safe to employ barbarians against the Roman army[73].’
+Sarus, the Goth, having no sympathy with such scruples, perceiving that
+it would, in these circumstances, ruin his prospects of a military career
+to be known as an adherent of Stilicho, ungenerously turned against his
+old chief, slew the brave Huns who formed his body-guard, and would fain
+have captured Stilicho himself, who, however, fled to Ravenna, but even
+in the hurry of his own flight found time to warn the neighbouring cities
+not to receive the _foederati_ within their walls. Soon after his arrival
+came a messenger from Olympius bearing the Emperor’s orders that he was
+to be apprehended and imprisoned. Stilicho took refuge in one of the
+many churches of Ravenna, but on the soldiers swearing a solemn oath in
+the presence of the Bishop that they were ordered to imprison him only
+but not to kill him, he surrendered himself to them. At once the same
+messenger produced a second letter from the Emperor, denouncing against
+Stilicho the punishment of death for his crimes against the Commonwealth.
+His friends and servants and a mass of indignant _foederati_ entreated to
+be allowed to defend him by arms, but Stilicho sternly forbade them, and
+calmly presented his neck to the sword of the executioner (Aug. 22, 408).
+
+Some men who have led apparently righteous and honourable lives are
+unmasked by Death, who exposes their well-hidden wickedness. In
+Stilicho’s case Death wrought exactly the opposite change. At every step
+of his career we ask ourselves the question, ‘Self-seeker or Patriot?’
+and it must be confessed that we scarcely get a perfectly satisfactory
+answer. But the closing scenes of his life show that he was indeed
+true to Rome, and refused the vengeance and the deliverance which lay
+all ready to his hand rather than use against her the swords of the
+barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: _Persecution of the friends of Stilicho._]
+
+The death of Stilicho was the signal for an outburst of jealous rage
+against his family and friends. Eucherius, who had fled to Rome, was
+before long put to death. Thermantia was sent back by Honorius to her
+mother. The adherents of Stilicho were tortured to make them confess
+his traitorous designs, and when they steadfastly denied the existence
+of any such, were beaten to death with cudgels. Above all, the Roman
+soldiers, in every city where the wives and children of the _foederati_
+were dwelling, rose in riotous insurrection, killing some and plundering
+others. Henceforth, of course, there was open war between legionaries and
+_foederati_, the latter of whom, to the number of 30,000, streamed forth
+to Alaric’s Illyrian camp and urged him to avenge them on their cruel and
+cowardly foes.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric invades Italy, 408._]
+
+Mindful of his former reverses in Italy, Alaric, though the voice
+‘Penetrabis ad Urbem’ was still ringing in his ears, offered peace to
+Honorius in exchange for a small sum of money, hostages, and the province
+of Pannonia, on which by this time the Empire can have had but a slender
+hold. Honorius, safe behind the canals of Ravenna, and relying on the
+prayers of Olympius, refused all terms of compromise, and late in this
+eventful year, 408, Alaric marched for the last time over the Julian
+Alps into Italy, never again to leave that land, the goal of so many
+aspirations. The events of the three years, 408-410, in each of which
+there was a siege of Rome, cannot here be related with any detail, and
+some of them are among the best-known commonplaces of history. I will
+only briefly assign to each year its distinguishing features.
+
+[Sidenote: _Rome ransomed, 408._]
+
+The first, 408, was the year of _ransom_. Alaric, as has been said, in
+the later months of the year marched into Italy, and did not, as before,
+linger in the plains of Lombardy, but struck southward through Picenum
+and Umbria, marching no doubt by the great Flaminian Way, and stood
+before long at the gates of Rome. There seems to have been no opposition
+to his progress. The ‘Roman’ party, so zealous in killing women and
+children and in organising _pronunciamentos_, slunk into their holes
+when an army appeared. It is probable that in this Italian expedition
+Alaric had made his host more of an army and less of a nation than on
+the previous occasion. We hear nothing of the waggons, and some of his
+marches and counter-marches can hardly have been performed with a long
+train of non-combatants following him.
+
+At Alaric’s appearance under their walls the Senate (for Honorius was
+safe at Ravenna) could think of no other means of opposing him than
+putting the hapless Serena, the widow of Stilicho, to death, fearing
+that she might open treacherous communications with the besiegers. The
+cowardly deed was not long unpunished. Alaric watched the Tiber above
+and below, and drew a strict line of blockade round the city. Hunger and
+pestilence were soon raging among the people, and the Senate found itself
+compelled to send ambassadors to Alaric to ask his terms. The threat that
+despair might drive the citizens to some audacious sortie was met by the
+well-known answer, ‘The thicker the hay, the easier mown’: the enquiry
+what Alaric meant to leave them if he insisted on their surrendering all
+their gold, all their moveable property, and all their barbarian slaves,
+by the equally well-known words, ‘Your lives[74].’
+
+More days of famine followed. At length a final embassy arranged the
+terms of the ransom which Alaric condescended to receive from the
+Imperial City. It consisted of 5000 lbs. weight of gold (£225,000),
+30,000 lbs. of silver (£90,000), 4000 silken tunics, 3000 scarlet hides,
+and 3000 lbs. of pepper. The date of this transaction is not known, but
+it was probably in the very last days of 408.
+
+[Sidenote: _409. Alaric negotiates._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Moderation of his requests._]
+
+The next year, 409, is the _year of the anti-Emperor, Attalus_. All
+Alaric’s dealings with the Senate and People of Rome at this time were
+directed to the conclusion of a firm treaty of alliance, offensive and
+defensive, with the Emperor. His aim was not to conquer Rome, or to
+settle his followers in any part of Italy, but to legitimise his position
+within the Empire, to have a large space on the Middle Danube, either
+Noricum or Pannonia, assigned to his people, and then to be recognised
+as Rome’s champion against all other enemies. In fact, he desired to
+renew the old _federate_ relation only on a footing of equality instead
+of one of semi-dependence. To all such propositions Honorius, or rather
+the ministers who spoke in his name, replied with an unceasing ‘_non
+possumus_,’ as they could not be attacked, being safe behind the dykes
+and lagoons of Ravenna. Alaric’s only resource was to put pressure, even
+cruel pressure, on Rome, in order to bring her sovereign to terms.
+
+[Sidenote: _Oath sworn by the head of Honorius._]
+
+A considerable part of the year 409 was consumed in these vain
+negotiations. The Praetorian Prefect, Jovius, who had supplanted Olympius
+in the position of chief adviser of the Emperor, seems to have been
+at first disposed to try to make terms with Alaric, and to see if the
+title ‘_Magister Utriusque Militiae_’ could not divert him from his
+schemes of conquest. But Honorius demurred to the proposal, and Jovius,
+accommodating himself to his master’s humour, insisted on all the chief
+officers of the Emperor assembling round him and swearing by their
+master’s head (which they touched in making the asseveration) that they
+would make no peace with Alaric, but would wage against him perpetual
+war. To all subsequent overtures of Alaric (and some of them surprise
+us by their moderation, offering terms such as the Empire might have
+safely and honourably granted), this tremendous oath by the empty head of
+Honorius was opposed as an insuperable obstacle.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attalus proclaimed Emperor._]
+
+Alaric, whose patience was worn out, returned to Rome, and again formed
+the blockade of the City. But the Senate, whose patience was equally
+exhausted, refused to again undergo the horrors of famine and pestilence
+for the ungrateful Honorius, and sent messengers to Alaric declaring that
+they were willing to renounce their allegiance to the Emperor. Peace on
+these terms was easily arranged. Attalus, the Praetorian Prefect of the
+City, a man of Greek extraction, was saluted as Emperor, and in that
+capacity concluded a treaty with Alaric, recognising him as an ally
+of the Empire, probably conceding to him a settlement in the coveted
+provinces on the Danube, and conferring on him at once the splendid
+position of _Magister Utriusque Militiae_.
+
+[Sidenote: _410. Attalus refuses to divide Italy with Honorius._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Supplies from Africa stopped._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Attalus deposed._]
+
+So opened the year 410, the ever-memorable year of the _Third Siege and
+Capture of Rome_. It seemed for a time as if Attalus would indeed wrest
+the Rule of All Things from his incapable rival. He marched towards
+Ravenna, from whence issued forth a piteous supplication for peace on
+the basis of a yet further subdivided Empire. If Honorius might but
+continue to reign at Ravenna, Attalus should reign at Rome, and the
+_Concordia Augustorum_ might unite them and Constantine, the Emperor
+of the Gauls, with the son of Arcadius, Emperor of the East. Attalus
+made a cruel and insulting reply, threatening his rival with mutilation
+and banishment: but the timely arrival at Ravenna of six legions from
+Constantinople prevented him from carrying his threat into execution, and
+turned the tide of fortune. Famine again threatened Rome, from another
+cause than the blockade of Alaric. Heraclian, to whom had been entrusted
+the execution of the sentence against Stilicho, was now holding the
+great province of Africa loyally for Honorius, and by cutting off the
+food supplies of Carthage from Rome, brought the City into such terrible
+straits that an angry cry was heard in the Amphitheatre, when the new
+Emperor was sitting there in state watching the games, ‘Pone pretium
+carni humanae’ (‘Fix the tariff for human flesh’). Alaric’s keen eye saw
+that Africa was now the key of the position, and he urged upon Attalus
+the necessity of sending troops, barbarian _foederati_, thither to
+overcome Heraclian. But Attalus, who was evidently a futile, inefficient
+ruler, delayed and lingered, and, as it was hinted, began to entertain
+schemes for disembarrassing himself of the oppressive patronage of the
+Visigoth. At length Alaric, tired of his vacillation and bad faith,
+and recognising the failure of his scheme of creating a rival Emperor,
+assembled his army on the plain outside Ariminum, and there, in the
+sight of thousands of Romans and Goths, formally stripped Attalus of the
+emblems of Empire, and proclaimed that he was reduced to the rank of a
+private citizen.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sarus breaks off the negotiations between Alaric and
+Honorius._]
+
+The diadem and the purple were sent to Honorius at Ravenna, and it seemed
+for a moment as if the just and honourable peace, so eagerly desired by
+Italy, by Rome, and by Alaric, might be secured. But Sarus the Goth, the
+same man who had turned treacherously against Stilicho in his adversity,
+and who, perhaps on that account, hated Alaric and was hated by him,
+entered Ravenna at the head of 300 veterans, and succeeded in breaking
+off the just-resumed thread of the negotiations.
+
+Then at length, as it seemed that nothing but the sword could cut the
+Gordian knot, Alaric again crossed the Apennines, determined to show what
+he could do to Rome as an enemy, since she in her infatuation rejected
+him as a friend.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric enters Rome, 24 Aug. 410._]
+
+There was this time no long agony of blockade, no famine or pestilence.
+On the night of the 24th of August, 410, almost as soon as he had
+appeared under the walls of the City, Alaric effected an entrance through
+the Salarian Gate, at the north-east corner of the City, at very nearly
+the same place where, on the 20th Sept. 1870, the soldiers of Victor
+Emmanuel entered Rome. Whether the gate was carried by a sudden surprise,
+or was opened by slaves or treacherous citizens within, it is impossible
+now to decide; but the theory of surprise seems, upon the whole, most
+probable. The splendid palace of the historian Sallust, hard by the
+Salarian Gate, was set on fire, and its spacious gardens had their beauty
+ruined by the entering Gothic soldiers.
+
+[Sidenote: _Rome sacked._]
+
+Thus, then, at length ‘the great city which reigned over the kings of the
+whole earth’ was captured and was pillaged by a foreign and a barbarian
+enemy. Civil war, sedition, frenzied Emperors had ‘dealt upon the
+Seven-hilled City’s pride’ in the course of the centuries; but not for
+800 years—not since Brennus and his Gauls had slain the Conscript Fathers
+in the Forum—had Rome been violently entered by a conquering foreign foe.
+There were some alleviations to the horrors of the capture, derived from
+the fact that the assailants were Christians; and these alleviations
+are naturally emphasised by the Church historians, from whom we derive
+most of our scanty information as to the Third Siege of Rome. Alaric had
+ordered that no Christian church should be injured, and that the right of
+asylum, especially in the two great Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul,
+should be religiously observed. These orders were perhaps made known to
+the citizens, multitudes of whom, Pagan as well as Christian, were soon
+flying for shelter to these islands of safety. But notwithstanding any
+such humane orders, honourable both to the general who issued them and
+to the army by whom they were obeyed, the sack of a great and wealthy
+city by a hungry and exasperated army of barbarians was of necessity a
+terrible thing. We hear of an aged widow beaten to death to make her
+disclose her imaginary treasures, of matrons ravished, of palaces laid
+in ashes. And above all rose now the terrible fact that _Roma Invicta_
+had been conquered. Where one barbarian chief had penetrated, more could,
+and of a surety would, follow. The citizens henceforth—like men who have
+lived through a great and fearful earthquake—must live evermore in dread
+of seeing the ghastly terror recommence.
+
+As even political caricatures may sometimes help us to understand what
+contemporary spectators think of the actors on the stage of history, let
+us listen to Procopius, who wrote 150 years later, but who has preserved
+to us a possibly contemporary story, as to the reception of the news of
+the fall of Rome by the Roman Augustus.
+
+[Sidenote: _Reception of the tidings by Honorius._]
+
+‘They say that at Ravenna one of the eunuchs who was in charge of the
+Imperial poultry announced to the Emperor Honorius that Roma had actually
+perished. Whereupon he cried with a loud voice—“But just now he fed out
+of my hands!” [for he had an exceedingly large fowl, Roma, by name.] Then
+the eunuch, understanding what was passing in his mind, said that it
+was Roma the _City_ which had been destroyed by Alaric. But the Emperor
+in reply said, “But I thought, my friend, that the _bird_ Roma had
+perished!”—so great they say was the stupidity of this Emperor.’
+
+[Sidenote: _The capture of Rome settled nothing._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Alaric, 410._]
+
+The capture of Rome by Alaric, though an event of incalculable importance
+in the history of the world, settled nothing in the immediate present.
+Still the Augustus, the only legitimate source of power in the Roman
+State, remained inaccessible at Ravenna. Still Heraclian, his yet loyal
+governor of Africa, held that province for his master, withholding the
+grain-supplies without which Rome could not live. Still Alaric could not
+conquer that firm peace, guaranteed by sufficient hostages, and securing
+to him a lawful position in the Empire, without which he was determined
+not to return to Illyricum. He marched to the extreme south of Italy,
+and designed to cross over into Sicily, in whose ports he would probably
+have collected an armament for the conquest of Africa. But he never
+effected the passage of the Straits of Messina, the ships which he had
+collected at Rhegium being destroyed by a violent storm. While he was
+still lingering in Calabria he was seized by an illness, which lasted
+but a few days. He had ‘penetrated to the City’; his work was done. The
+fateful voice rang in his ears no longer, telling him of great exploits
+yet reserved for him in the future, but instead of it came Death. He
+was probably in about the forty-fifth year of his age; so that he, like
+Theodosius, left great possibilities of conquest unexhausted. But in his
+short career he had done enough to change the current of the world’s
+history.
+
+[Sidenote: _Burial of Alaric._]
+
+The story of his burial is well known. In order to guard his grave from
+the possibility of insult at the hands of the Provincials, a number of
+captives were employed in diverting the stream of the Busentus, a river
+of Bruttii. In the old river-bed a great trench was dug, wherein were
+laid the bones of the conquering king, and, after the fashion of his
+heathen forefathers, some of the most precious spoils of Rome were laid
+by his side, that he might not miss them in the gardens of Paradise or
+the halls of Walhalla. Then the trench was filled in, the river was
+turned back into its ancient bed, the captives were slain: and thus ‘no
+man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day.’
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VI.
+
+PLACIDIA: ATTILA.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Historical perspective._]
+
+An interval of forty-two years elapsed between Alaric’s sack of Rome
+and the next great barbarian invasion of Italy. To us, looking at these
+years as they appear on the outstretched map of History, it is manifest
+that they were years of gradual but progressive decline and decay for the
+Roman Empire. Probably, but not certainly, they wore the same aspect to
+contemporary observers. But the important point to remember is that there
+_was_ such an interval between the first and the second acts of the great
+World-Tragedy. Reading history in a manual, or glancing over it in such
+a rapid sketch as I am now attempting to draw, we are apt to forget how
+slowly some of its scenes have unrolled themselves. Superficial students,
+if they do not actually confound Alaric with Attila, often think of them
+as contemporaries, perhaps as allies, and suppose that they and Genseric
+and Odoacer, by some combined and concerted effort, brought about ‘the
+fall of the Western Empire.’ What I want to impress upon my hearers is
+the fact that if a child was born on the day that Alaric was laid under
+the waters of the Busentus, he would be a middle-aged man when Attila
+stood under the walls of Aquileia, and would be verging on threescore
+and ten when the last Roman Emperor of the West was bidden to hand over
+the purple and the diadem to a barbarian conqueror. I ask also for a full
+measure of pity for those true Roman hearts whose allotted span of life
+had to be all passed in these years of irresistible decline. There are
+times like that of which a poet has sung—
+
+    ‘Bliss was it in those days to be alive,
+    And to be young was very heaven;’
+
+times like the first years that followed the battle of Salamis, like the
+first thrill and rapture of the Crusades, like ‘the spacious days of
+great Elizabeth,’ when the life of a nation has been so strong, so fresh,
+and so triumphant that one feels as if even the saddest individual life
+must have been overflowed by the great national gladness and saved from
+utter sorrow. On the other hand, could even the most unclouded domestic
+happiness atone to a patriotic Roman who lived in the fifth century for
+the necessity of watching the lingering agony of his country? Like a man
+dwelling upon a subsiding continent, he saw one familiar landmark after
+another submerged beneath the waters of barbarism. Or like those remote
+descendants of ours, if such shall then be living on this planet, who, as
+physical philosophers tell us, will see this earth begin to part with her
+atmosphere and become incapable of sustaining organic life, he must have
+felt that all the old conditions of being were inverted, and that life by
+the beautiful Mediterranean was going to become in truth unliveable.
+
+[Sidenote: _Early life of Placidia, born about 388._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Galla, 394. Death of Theodosius, 395._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Captivity of Placidia._]
+
+In order to bring the length of this interval of comparative tranquillity
+properly before our minds, let us trace the fortunes of one person who
+lived through it, a daughter, sister, wife and mother of Emperors, the
+lady Galla Placidia. The daughter of Theodosius’s second marriage, she
+lost her mother, Galla, when a child of five or six years old, and
+her father in the following year. She appears to have been brought up
+at Rome, perhaps by her kinswoman Serena, who possibly intended that
+she should be the bride of her son, Eucherius. Her position was one
+of forlorn splendour, that of an orphan with no sister and with two
+such brothers as Arcadius and Honorius; nor does it appear to have
+been cheered by any gleams of friendship between herself and the house
+of Stilicho. When Alaric first appeared under the walls of Rome, the
+resolution to put Serena to death as his suspected accomplice was taken
+‘by the Senate and by the Emperor’s sister, Placidia[75].’ Probably the
+name of a young maiden of twenty was somewhat ostentatiously used by the
+Senate in order to justify their own action against the niece of the
+great Theodosius: still it is impossible for the admirers of Placidia
+(of whom I am one) not to regret that her influence on this occasion was
+exerted on the side of vengeance rather than on the side of compassion.
+It was probably at the end of the first siege of Rome that Placidia was
+taken prisoner by the Goths, who retained her as a hostage, but treated
+her with all outward show of honour and royal ministrations. She was
+therefore doubtless present at the great assembly at Ariminum, where her
+brother’s rival, Attalus, was deposed; she would hear from the Gothic
+soldiers their histories of the sack of Rome; she perhaps saw the mighty
+form of her conqueror outstretched in death in his tent by the Busentus.
+Now, for the next five years, her history was to be singularly interwoven
+with that of his brother-in-law and successor, Ataulfus.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alaric’s successor, Ataulfus._]
+
+This man, whose name is in fact the same as one of those borne by another
+great Northern conqueror, Gustavus _Adolphus_, had joined Alaric with
+reinforcements raised in Upper Pannonia in the year 409, and had taken
+part in the skirmishes with Sarus before Ravenna, which preceded the
+Third Siege of Rome. He was a blood-relation[76] of Alaric, as well
+as his kinsman by marriage, and was by general acclamation hailed as
+his successor and raised on the shield as king. Though not boasting
+the full number of inches of a Gothic warrior, he was of shapely form
+and noble countenance. He is especially interesting to us, because a
+chance conversation with a Provincial, a conversation which passed at
+Narbonne and was reported at Bethlehem, gives us a glimpse into his own
+secret hopes and aspirations, such as we do not possess into the mind
+of any other leader of the barbarians. Orosius tells us that when he
+was at Bethlehem he heard a citizen of Narbonne, who had served under
+Theodosius, and who was a wise and religious person, say that Ataulfus
+had frequently told him ‘that his first thought when he entered on the
+career of conquest had been to claim for the Goths all that leadership
+of the world which had once belonged to the Romans, and to vindicate for
+himself a position like that which had belonged to the mighty Augustus.
+Gradually, however, the fashion of his dreams had changed. He saw that
+it was not by the sword alone, but by law, that Rome had dominated the
+world, and that his own countrymen, wild and impetuous, had not learned
+that lesson of obedience to Law which alone could fit them to rule; and
+now his whole desire was to restore and re-invigorate the great Roman
+Commonwealth, transforming that which he once hoped to destroy.’
+
+Consciously or unconsciously every really statesmanlike intellect among
+the Northern chieftains must have gone through the same change and come
+to the same conclusion. Out of the Goth, or the Frank, or the Saxon
+alone it was not possible yet to form a law-abiding nation. Either
+from the Roman State or the Roman Church they must learn those habits
+of discipline and self-restraint which they did in the end learn, and
+practise as no purely Romance nation, far less any purely Celtic nation,
+has ever practised them. What Ataulfus saw to be the statesman’s true aim
+was that which Theodoric accomplished with temporary, and Charlemagne
+with somewhat more permanent success—that transfusion of fresh Teutonic
+blood into the old Roman body which has in fact made modern Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: _Loves of Ataulfus and Placidia._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their marriage at Narbonne, 414._]
+
+The political conversion of Ataulfus was aided, as conversions have been
+so often aided, by a woman. The fair Placidia, forced to follow all the
+movements of the Gothic army, yet ‘treated with all honour and ever
+tended with royal ministrations,’ vanquished his heart. The old saying
+that ‘conquered Greece led her victor captive’ was renewed with Placidia
+and Ataulfus; but with a delicacy which we should term chivalrous if we
+were speaking of a later age, he refused to make her his bride, though
+she too loved him, till the consent of her brother came from Ravenna.
+After four years of weary negotiations this consent was obtained, but not
+until the Goths had marched out of Italy into Gaul. In January, 414, the
+marriage of the Gothic king and the Roman Lady was celebrated at Narbonne
+at the house of a citizen named Ingenuus. The ‘wise and religious person’
+who afterwards conversed with Jerome at Bethlehem was doubtless present
+at the wedding, if indeed he were not (as is very probable) Ingenuus
+himself. Men noticed with interest that Ataulfus entered the inner
+apartment to claim his bride, dressed, not in the barbaric splendour of
+his countrymen, but like a Roman Senator. They saw with admiration the
+fifty goodly youths in silken robes, bearing plates filled with gold
+and gems, who formed part of Ataulfus’ splendid _Morgen-gabe_[77] to
+his bride. Then came music, and they saw, perhaps not without a touch
+of scorn, Attalus, once Emperor of Rome, leading the dance and song in
+honour of his great patron’s wedding.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fortunes of the Visigothic kingdom._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Placidia’s child, and of Ataulfus, 415._]
+
+Unhappily for the world, this union of Roman and barbarian led to no
+abiding results. The kingdom set up by Ataulfus did indeed endure, though
+not exactly in the shape which he had given to it. Established at first
+chiefly as a South Gaulish kingdom, and remaining such till the conquests
+of Clovis at the end of the fifth century, it then shifted its centre
+of gravity southward of the Pyrenees and became that Visigothic kingdom
+of Spain which was overthrown by the Moors in 711, and which gradually
+crept back to life again under the kings of Leon, Castille, and Arragon.
+But the dynasty of Ataulfus himself was short-lived. A child, named
+Theodosius, was born to him by Placidia; but this child, around which so
+many hopes centered, died, to the unspeakable grief of its parents, and
+was buried in a silver coffin at Barcelona, where they then dwelt. Soon
+after the infant’s death the father was stabbed in the back by one of his
+servants, who thus avenged an old grudge for the execution of a former
+master. His dying words to his brother were, ‘Live in peace with Rome and
+restore Placidia to Honorius.’
+
+[Sidenote: _416-423._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Humiliations of Placidia._]
+
+[Sidenote: _She is restored to Honorius, 416._]
+
+The murder of Ataulfus was possibly connected with a sort of insurrection
+against the Roman influences which had been of late so powerful in the
+Gothic Court. His successor, the brutal Singeric, murdered the sons of
+Ataulfus (the children of his first marriage) and forced Placidia to
+walk as a captive before his chariot for twelve miles from the gates
+of Barcelona. After only eight days’ reign however, this ruffian was
+dethroned and slain, and the gallant Walia was acclaimed king, whose name
+is one of the most distinguished in the early history of the Visigothic
+monarchy. He renewed and strengthened the alliance with Rome, and gave
+back Placidia to the Emperor, receiving in return the somewhat prosaic
+ransom of 19,000 quarters of corn.
+
+[Sidenote: _Her marriage to Constantius._]
+
+Placidia was escorted by the Roman general who had received her from the
+hands of the Goths to her brother’s Court at Ravenna, and there, nearly
+two years after the death of Ataulfus, she gave her hand to this general,
+an old lover of hers named Constantius.
+
+[Sidenote: _Second widowhood and exile of Placidia._]
+
+The union of Constantius and Placidia lasted four years, and the fruit
+of it was a son and a daughter, the first named Valentinian (after his
+maternal great-grandfather), the second, Honoria. Constantius, a brave
+soldier, but a rough, sullen, unpopular man, was associated in the Empire
+by his brother-in-law, and, after six months’ enjoyment of the Imperial
+dignity, died, apparently of mere _ennui_, in 421. Two years after his
+death, Placidia and her children withdrew to Constantinople, on account
+of a quarrel which had broken out with her brother, who, as I suspect
+from the description of his conduct, had begun to show symptoms of
+softening of the brain.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Honorius. Elevation of Joannes._]
+
+[Sidenote: _423-425._]
+
+In this same year (423) Honorius died at the age of thirty-nine, and
+was buried in a gigantic marble sarcophagus, which may still be seen in
+‘the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia’ at Ravenna. There was no member of
+the family of Theodosius on the spot to claim the vacant diadem, and
+Joannes, a somewhat obscure member of the Civil Service (_Primicerius
+Notariorum_), was permitted to wear it, under the patronage of the
+powerful _Magister Militum_, Castinus.
+
+[Sidenote: _Theodosius II places the son of Placidia on the Western
+throne._]
+
+When the news of this event (usurpation we must not call it, for there
+was no strict hereditary right in the Roman Empire) reached the Court of
+Constantinople, the young Emperor Theodosius II, the son of Arcadius,
+determined to send an expedition to the West to overthrow Joannes.
+The expedition was commanded by two brave Alans—father and son—named
+Ardaburius and Aspar; and, after one or two reverses, was in the end
+completely successful. Joannes was brought as a prisoner to Aquileia;
+his right hand was cut off, he was paraded round the city upon an ass,
+and, after some more ungenerous insults of this kind, he was put to
+death. Ravenna, which had sympathised with the elevation of Joannes,
+was punished by being sacked by the soldiers of Ardaburius. Rome was
+flattered by the young Valentinian III, a boy of seven years old, being
+sent there to assume the purple. At Constantinople, Theodosius II and his
+people, who were assembled in the Hippodrome when the news of victory
+arrived, walked in procession to the great Basilica, singing praises to
+God for his deliverance.
+
+[Sidenote: _Placidia as regent, 425-450._]
+
+From 425 to 450, that is, from the thirty-eighth to the sixty-third year
+of her life, Placidia was virtually the sovereign of what remained of the
+Western Empire. She was already styled Augusta in right of her husband
+Constantius’ six months’ wearing of the purple. She was, in accordance
+with one or two precedents, entitled to hold the reins of power (with the
+rank, though not the precise title, of Regent) during her son’s minority:
+and as that son was idle and pleasure-loving, reproducing only the weaker
+features of the Theodosian character, she continued to hold them after he
+had grown to manhood, and until her own death in 450.
+
+[Sidenote: _Events of Placidia’s regency._]
+
+Great events, disastrous events, were happening during this second
+quarter of the fifth century. In the Church of the East the wind was
+rising for that great storm of the Monophysite controversy which for
+a hundred years took peace from the earth. In the West, Carthage was
+being conquered by the Vandals, Gaul and Spain were being more and
+more hopelessly lost to the Empire, ‘the groans of the Britons’ were
+being borne across the sea to ‘Aetius, thrice Consul.’ All these events
+Placidia had to witness with failing heart from her palace at Ravenna by
+the Pine Wood and the sea.
+
+[Sidenote: _Her chief adviser, Aetius._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Danger from the Huns._]
+
+If the Augusta did not herself display any conspicuous faculty of rule
+during these twenty-five years of decline, she at least had the merit
+of loyally supporting the one man who, like Stilicho in the previous
+generation, was best able to sustain the falling Empire. This was that
+‘Aetius thrice Consul’ to whom allusion has just been made. He was born
+at Silistria, on the Danube, the son of Gaudentius, an official of high
+rank in the Western Empire. If he was not of barbarian extraction, a
+point on which we cannot speak with certainty, the events of his life
+threw him into close intercourse with the barbarians. For three years a
+hostage in the camp of the Visigoths, and then, for an indefinite time,
+hostage in the country of the Huns, he had contracted friendships with
+the leading men of both nations, had perhaps learned something of their
+language, had doubtless observed their tactics and formed his own opinion
+of the best means of defeating them[78]. After the death of Honorius
+he had adhered to the party of Joannes, but, not having been able to
+avert his overthrow, he had accepted high command under Placidia and
+Valentinian, whom he served loyally to the end of his days[79]. Loyally,
+that is, as far as his sovereigns were concerned. If the hitherto
+accepted story of his quarrel with Bonifacius, governor of Africa, be
+correct, there was deep disloyalty on the part of Aetius towards his
+greatest colleague in the Imperial service, and that disloyalty cost a
+province to the Empire; but the account of these transactions may be
+reserved till the next lecture, in which I shall have to speak of the
+conquests of the Vandals. During ten years, from 429 to 439, the energies
+of Aetius were chiefly directed to maintaining some hold on the East and
+Centre of Gaul, with which object he waged war with diverse success on
+the Visigoths, the Franks, and the Burgundians, and it is noteworthy
+that in these wars the most useful auxiliaries of Aetius were men of
+the Hunnish nation. During the last nine years of the life of Placidia
+(441-450) the chief factor in European politics, the care that bit most
+deeply into the hearts both of the Eastern and Western Sovereigns of the
+Empire, was the menacing might of ATTILA, king of the HUNS. To these
+savage Asiatic marauders it is now time to turn our attention.
+
+[Sidenote: _History of the Huns after 374._]
+
+For more than fifty years after the Huns crossed the Sea of Azof, and
+fell like a thunderbolt on the kingdom of Hermanric the Ostrogoth, their
+history is almost a blank. They had set in motion an avalanche of ruin
+on the Empire, but they themselves, though doubtless spreading wide the
+terror of their name through Southern Russia and Hungary, and though once
+travelling southward as far as Antioch on a marauding expedition, did
+not often during this period come forward as claimants for the goods of
+the dying Empire. In fact, as we have already seen, on several occasions
+the Hunnish soldier seems to have been the bravest and most faithful of
+the auxiliaries of Rome. In part this was probably due to common enmity
+to the intervening Visigoths. The Roman Provincial hated and feared the
+Goth: the Goth feared and loathed the Hun: accordingly the Roman and the
+Hun found it for their interest to be friends.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila’s accession, 433._]
+
+[Sidenote: _His character and appearance._]
+
+[Sidenote: _The sword of Mars._]
+
+In the year 433, Attila and his brother Bleda mounted the throne of
+the Huns. Twelve years later Bleda died, having been, according to
+some accounts, craftily slain by order of his brother. At all times
+Attila’s was the commanding personality, and with him alone need we here
+concern ourselves. Let us hear how he is described by the historian of
+the Goths[80]: ‘Attila was a man born into the world to agitate the
+nations, the fear of all lands, one who, I hardly know how, terrified
+all by the awful apprehensions spread abroad concerning him. He was
+proud in his gait, rolling his eyes hither and thither, so that the
+elation of his heart showed itself even by every movement of his body: a
+lover of war, but not himself given to acts of violence[81], mighty in
+counsel, placable by those who humbled themselves before him, favourable
+to those whom he had admitted to his fealty: short of stature, broad
+of chest, with an over-large head, with little eyes, thin beard, hair
+sprinkled with grey, turned-up nose, muddy complexion. All these were
+the characteristics which recalled his origin’ [or, to use our modern
+phraseology, the distinctive marks of the Mongol race]. ‘By natural
+temperament he was always confident that he should do great things, but
+this confidence of his was increased by finding “the sword of Mars,”
+which is ever held sacred by the Scythian kings, and which is said to
+have been discovered in this way. A certain herdsman saw one of his
+heifers limping, and being anxious to discover the cause of her wound,
+carefully followed her bleeding footprints through the grass, till at
+length he came to the sword, upon which the heifer had incautiously
+trodden while grazing, and having dug it up he at once carried it to
+Attila. He, having gratified the herdsman with a generous present, deemed
+himself to be now appointed sovereign of the whole world, and victory in
+all wars to be assured to him in right of the sword of Mars.’
+
+[Sidenote: _433. Hunnish demands at Constantinople._]
+
+Immediately upon the accession of Attila and Bleda, they demanded and
+obtained from the Eastern Emperor the duplication of their yearly
+_stipendium_, or, as they more truly called it, tribute, which was now
+raised from £14,000 to £28,000. At the same time they insisted on the
+return of all Huns or Romans who had fled from the Hunnish dominions and
+taken refuge under the ineffectual aegis of Rome. This demand for the
+surrender of refugees, the result, doubtless, of the barbarous despotism
+of the Huns, was afterwards frequently renewed, and its imperfect
+fulfilment was a standing grievance against the Eastern Emperor.
+
+[Sidenote: _433-441. Extent of Attila’s Empire._]
+
+For the next eight years, however, we hear but little of diplomatic
+relations between Attila and the Empire. There can be little doubt
+that during these years he was engaged in consolidating his dominions
+northwards and eastwards. His own peculiar territory was evidently
+the flat land of what we now call Hungary, between the Danube and the
+Carpathians; but the nations which owned his over-lordship stretched
+probably from the Caspian to the Rhine. Very loose and ill-compacted,
+no doubt, was the Empire of the Huns; but the kings of the Ostrogoths,
+Gepidae, Alans, Suevi, and Heruli, all followed Attila to battle, all
+formed part of that confederacy of rapine which he could hurl whenever it
+pleased him against a civilised and wealthy foe.
+
+[Sidenote: _His campaigns in Asia._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Did he drive our Saxon forefathers from their homes?_]
+
+In the East another Tartar horde, the Geougen, perhaps even more savage
+than the Huns themselves, threatened the new barbarian Empire; but Attila
+appears to have formed an alliance with China which neutralised their
+hostility, and left him free to prosecute his designs of conquest west of
+the Ural mountains and south of the Caspian. He marched from the latter
+sea fifteen days southward into the Persian kingdom, and ravaged the
+ancient province of Media. He evidently ruled without a rival in European
+Russia, or at least in that part of it which was then worthy of even a
+barbarian’s notice, and—what is more important to us—he had, we are told,
+‘subjected the islands in the ocean to his sway.’ These ‘islands in the
+ocean’ can be none other than the islands and peninsula of Denmark and
+the southern part of Sweden, which the geographers of the time considered
+to be an island. Now, however transient may have been the Hunnish
+conquest of those Baltic lands, of Holstein, Jutland, and South Sweden,
+it was sufficient to produce results of world-historical importance.
+In those lands our fathers, the Saxons, the Jutes, the Angles, were
+dwelling at the commencement of the fifth century, making doubtless
+many a piratical raid against the ‘_Litus Saxonicum_’ in Britain, but,
+as a rule, returning with their plunder to their homes by the Baltic.
+From those lands, before the year 441, they had begun to swarm forth,
+alighting upon the eastern and southern coasts of Britain, coming
+probably with wives and children, and coming to conquer and to _remain_.
+Why this new and sudden change in the current of the nation’s thoughts?
+Surely it was the swarthy Hunnish riders, the same who had scared the
+Visigoths across the Danube, who sent the Angle and the Saxon in their
+long ships scudding across the German Ocean. If this be so, the obscure
+movements of this squalid Hunnish people not only threw down the Empire
+of Rome, but indirectly caused the building up of the Empire of England.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila torments the Eastern and Western Courts with his
+embassies, 441-450._]
+
+With the year 441, Attila re-enters the arena of Imperial politics. For
+the next nine years he sends ceaseless embassies to the Eastern and
+Western Empires, ostensibly to press for the redress of grievances,
+really in order to claim higher and ever higher terms for the maintenance
+of peace, and to enrich his favourites at Court by the presents which he
+well knows that the trembling Augusti at Constantinople and Ravenna will
+give them in order to purchase their good offices with their master.
+
+The standing grievance against the Eastern Court was, as has been said,
+the alleged failure to surrender the fugitives, Hunnish princes or Roman
+merchants, who had escaped from Attila’s dominions. The chief grievances
+against Placidia and Valentinian were two: the vases of Sirmium and the
+dowry of the lady Honoria.
+
+[Sidenote: _The matter of the Sirmian vases._]
+
+(1) A certain Gaulish provincial named Constantius, who filled the post
+of Secretary to Attila, when the city of Sirmium was besieged by the
+Huns, received from the Bishop of that city a deposit of the rich gold
+Communion-plate of the Church, in trust to apply the proceeds to the
+ransoming of the Bishop and his flock. Regardless, however, of this
+trust, he carried off the sacred vessels to Rome and raised a large sum
+of money upon them from the goldsmith, Silvanus. Eventually Sirmium
+was taken; Constantius, a traitor to all parties, was crucified; and
+Attila, claiming a sort of ‘resulting trust’ of the vases for himself as
+conqueror, insisted that Silvanus should be surrendered to him as having
+stolen _his_ property.
+
+[Sidenote: _Honoria’s ring._]
+
+(2) Honoria, the sister of Valentinian III, a young and giddy girl, had
+compromised her reputation by an intrigue with an Imperial chamberlain,
+and was sent by her mother to the Court of Constantinople in a kind of
+honourable imprisonment. Her spirit chafed at the seclusion in which
+she was kept by her four middle-aged and almost nun-like cousins, and
+she formed the wild scheme of plighting her troth to the King of the
+Huns, and calling upon him to be her deliverer. Attila received the ring
+which she sent him, and, though he had already many wives, disdained not
+to add Honoria to the number, so far at least as this that ‘he claimed
+as her betrothed husband one half of the Western Empire which had been
+bequeathed to Honoria by her father, but out of which she was kept by her
+brother’s covetousness.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Embassy of 448._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Imperial plot for Attila’s assassination._]
+
+The most important of the return-embassies was that which was sent
+by Theodosius II, in the year 448, to the Court of Attila. The chief
+ambassador was Maximin, a man of illustrious birth and high official
+rank; and the official whom we should call the Secretary of Legation
+was Priscus, to whose able pen we owe a minute account of the embassy,
+which is certainly the most interesting historical document of the
+century. Both Maximin and Priscus were Pagans, and both were men of high
+character. They were used, however, to cloak an infamous plot which
+had been concerted at the Court of Constantinople, but of which they
+were themselves ignorant, for the assassination of Attila by one of the
+nobles of his guard named Edeco. It is like reading a chapter of _Quentin
+Durward_ or _Les Trois Mousquetaires_, to see the way in which the plot
+is hatched, developed, and finally detected: and the honest indignation
+of Attila against ‘his slave, Theodosius, who paid him tribute but dared
+to plot the assassination of his master,’ is finely expressed, and puts
+the savage Hun for the time immeasurably above the cultured and nominally
+Christian Emperor. I have no space here, however, to insert these
+details; but, though it has been often quoted before, I must transcribe
+Priscus’s account of Attila’s palace and of a banquet therein, to which
+he and his chief were invited.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila’s palace._]
+
+‘Having crossed some more rivers we arrived at length at a very large
+village, in which was situated the palace of Attila. This dwelling was,
+we were told, the finest building in all the country. It was made of
+logs and smooth planks, and surrounded by wooden palisades, not for
+safety but for ornament. Next to the King’s house, that of Onegesius
+(his chief minister) was most conspicuous. It, too, was surrounded by a
+palisading, but was not adorned with towers as Attila’s was. Not far from
+this enclosure was a bath which Onegesius had built of stones brought
+from Pannonian quarries, for the barbarians who dwell there have not a
+stick nor a stone in their own country, but have to import all building
+materials from a distance. The architect of this bath was carried captive
+from Sirmium, and hoped to receive his freedom as the reward of his
+ingenuity; but unconsciously he prepared for himself a worse lot than
+that of ordinary slavery, for Onegesius made him his bath-man, and he had
+to wait upon him and his retinue whenever they had a mind to bathe.’
+
+
+THE BANQUET.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila’s banquet._]
+
+‘When we returned to our tent, there came an invitation to us both from
+Attila to be present at his banquet, which would take place about 3 P.M.
+Punctually, at the time appointed, we went to the dinner and stood on
+the threshold before Attila. According to the custom of the country,
+the cup-bearer brought us a bowl of wine that we might pray for the
+good-luck of the host before taking our seats. When this was done, and
+we had just tasted the bowl, we came to the chairs of state on which
+we were to sit at dinner-time. All the seats of the guests were ranged
+along the walls on either side of the building. In the centre of all sat
+Attila on a couch, with another couch behind him, behind which again a
+flight of steps led up to his bed, hidden by curtains of white linen and
+variegated stuffs, ornamentally arranged as the Greeks and Romans prepare
+the nuptial couch.’ Then the order of precedence is described. The
+Ambassadors, to their evident surprise, found that the seats of honour
+were given, not to them, but to Hunnish nobles.
+
+‘Opposite to Onegesius on a double chair sat two of the sons of Attila,
+while his eldest son sat on Attila’s couch, not near to him but on its
+extreme verge, and with eyes cast down upon the ground through awe of
+his father. When all were thus arranged in order, the cup-bearer came in
+and handed to Attila his ivy-wood drinking-cup filled with wine. When he
+had received it, he saluted him who sat nearest him in rank. The guest
+thus honoured stood up, and it was not etiquette for him to sit down
+till he had sipped or drunk off the wine and returned the goblet to the
+cup-bearer. In the same way all who were present showed their respect
+to the King: he remaining seated all the while, they stood up, received
+the cup, greeted him and tasted the wine. Behind each guest stood a
+cup-bearer, whose business it was to go into the centre of the hall, each
+in his proper order, and meet Attila’s cup-bearer coming out from beside
+his master.
+
+‘Then entered first Attila’s servant bearing a plate full of meat, and
+after him came the general waiters who laid bread and other victuals on
+the tables, of which there was one for every three or four guests, or
+sometimes more. For all the rest of the barbarians and for us a costly
+banquet had been prepared, which was served on silver dishes, but Attila
+had plain meat on his wooden plate. He showed also simple tastes in all
+his other surroundings. For the other banqueters had golden and silver
+drinking-cups put beside them, but his was of wood. His raiment also was
+quite plain, distinguished by its cleanness only from that of any of
+his followers; and neither the sword which was hung up beside him, nor
+the clasps of his barbaresque shoes, nor the bridle of his horse, was
+adorned, as is the case with other Huns, with gold or precious stones or
+anything else that is costly.’
+
+Priscus then again describes the drinking of Attila’s health, which was
+performed by all the guests, standing, between each of the courses.
+
+‘When evening came on, torches were lighted, and two barbarians coming in
+and standing opposite to Attila, recited songs previously composed, in
+which they sang of his victories and his warlike virtues. The banqueters
+gazed earnestly on the minstrels; some were delighted with the poems;
+others, remembering past conflicts, felt their souls stirred within them;
+while the old were melted into tears by the thought that their bodies
+were grown weak through age and their hot hearts were compelled into
+repose.
+
+‘When the songs were ended a mad Hun came forward, who by his strange,
+wild, incessant chatter moved all the guests to laughter. After him
+entered Zercon the Moor’ [whom we know from another source[82] to have
+been a hump-backed dwarf with ape-like nose]. ‘By his garb, his voice,
+and his wild promiscuous jumble of Latin, Hunnish, and Gothic words,
+he sent all present, except Attila, into fits of laughter. The King,
+however, remained quite unmoved, changed not a line of his countenance,
+and neither by word nor deed showed the slightest enjoyment of the joke,
+except that when his youngest son, Ernak, came in and stood beside him
+he gently pinched his cheek and looked upon him with kindly gaze. When I
+expressed my wonder at his neglect of his other sons and the favour which
+he showed to this one, the barbarian who sat beside me and who understood
+the Italian language, after making me promise secrecy, assured me that
+the prophets had foretold to Attila that his race should suffer reverses
+and then be raised up again by this son.
+
+‘When we had sat at the banquet till far into the night, we departed, not
+wishing to persist in drinking any longer.’
+
+From this single picture we may imagine the scenes which frequently
+occurred when the Ambassadors of Theodosius and Valentinian came, with
+fearful hearts, into the presence of Attila, striving, yet striving in
+vain, to keep up the traditions of the majesty of Rome. We may imagine,
+too, the reception which would be accorded to the Teutonic under-kings,
+Gepid, Herul, Ostrogoth, when they came, as assuredly they would come, at
+least once a year, into the presence of their supreme lord.
+
+[Sidenote: _Deaths of Placidia and Theodosius II, 450._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Marcian, the new Eastern Emperor, will not truckle to
+Attila._]
+
+The years from 441 to 450, the era of embassies, came to an end. In
+450 death wrought great changes in the palaces both of Ravenna and
+Constantinople. In the West, Placidia died, and the functions as well as
+the show of governing had to be assumed by Valentinian III, who still for
+a time gave his confidence loyally to Aetius. In the East, Theodosius
+II died of injuries received by a fall from a runaway horse, and the
+sovereign power became vested in his sister Pulcheria and her husband,
+the brave old soldier, Marcian. The next Ambassador sent by Marcian’s
+orders to the Court of Attila took a higher and more manly tone than
+the Hun had heard during the whole reign of Theodosius. It was clear
+that there would be no more chance of sending oppressive embassies, of
+doubling and quadrupling the ‘tribute,’ or of worrying about the return
+of refugees. Any further advantages that were to be gained from the East
+must be gained at the point of the sword: and upon a survey of the whole
+situation, Attila decided that since the time had come for war it should
+be war, not with the East but with the West, not with the grim Marcian
+but with the soft and indolent Valentinian.
+
+There is thus a certain correspondence between the careers of Alaric and
+Attila. Each took up a position on the confines of the two Empires. Each
+at first spent some years in making war or threatening war on the Eastern
+Empire, and each finally devoted his whole energies to war with the
+Empire of the West.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila prepares for war with the Western Empire._]
+
+Pretexts for war were of course easily found. The great question of
+the vases of Sirmium was probably still unsettled. Honoria’s dowry had
+certainly not been handed over to the affianced Hun. Aetius, warring in
+Gaul, had seated on one of the Frankish thrones a young prince (possibly
+Meroveus), whose supplanted rival claimed the assistance of Attila.
+Above all, the Huns and their allies yearned to burn, to plunder, to
+slay, and the Western provinces alone could at the moment satiate this
+desire. Attila did not, however, entirely neglect the prudent precautions
+of a statesman. He concluded an alliance, offensive and defensive, with
+Gaiseric, the Vandal conqueror of Carthage, an alliance which, had it
+been followed up by a well-timed Vandal attack on Rome, might probably
+have ended the life of the Western Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alliance between that Empire and the Visigoths. 451._]
+
+On the other hand, Aetius, at this crisis of the fortunes of Gaul,
+concluded an alliance which was of infinite importance, both for its
+immediate results and for the rearrangement of parties to which it
+pointed in the not distant future. Theodoric the Visigoth, successor of
+Walia, reigned at Toulouse over a well-compacted monarchy which had been
+rapidly growing in strength and in civilisation. We are now speaking of
+a time forty-one years after Alaric’s sack of Rome: and the days when
+the Visigoths were a wandering horde of _foederati_, seeking on almost
+any terms for a recognised position within the Empire, are already far
+below the horizon. Theodoric is the acknowledged lord of one of the
+fairest portions of Gaul; his people have become a dominant caste of
+warriors, whose ascendancy the Provincials do not dream of disputing; but
+Aetius has been for years struggling, sometimes with the aid of Hunnish
+auxiliaries, to prevent him from extending his dominion yet further over
+Gaul.
+
+Now, in the presence of this vaster danger, this thunder-cloud rolling up
+from the plains of Hungary, which threatens to overwhelm Goth and Roman
+in one common ruin, all these bickerings cease. The Visigoth no doubt is
+yet barbarous, but he is rapidly becoming civilised; while the Hun is an
+utter savage. The Visigoth, though an Arian, is a Christian; the Hun is
+a brutal Pagan. The Visigoth desires, it is true, to rule in Gaul; but
+the Hun will utterly destroy it. The result of these considerations was
+that Aetius and Theodoric formed an alliance against the invader, and,
+notwithstanding some delays and some misunderstandings, they seem on the
+whole to have both, honourably observed its obligations.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila enters Gaul, 451._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Siege of Orleans._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila retreats._]
+
+At Eastertide, 451, the waters of the great deep were broken up. The
+motley host, said to number half a million of men, marshalled by ‘a mob
+of kings[83],’ but all trembling at the nod of Attila, moved westward,
+hewed down trees in the Thuringer Wald, and, on the rude boats and
+rafts which they thus constructed, crossed the Rhine. All the towns in
+Belgic Gaul—Tongres, Metz, Rheims—yielded to their savage onslaught.
+Everywhere flew the red banner of fire. The citizens were slain on their
+hearth-stones; the priests, against whom the invaders had an especial
+hatred, were murdered before the altars, on which glittered the coveted
+silver and gold. Paris escaped destruction; whether saved by the prayers
+of Sainte Geneviève or guarded by its own comparative insignificance it
+is not for us to decide. So the savage host, having rolled on through
+Belgic and Lugdunensian Gaul, reached the great river Loire, which
+circled the kingdom of the Visigoths. Here they laid siege to Orleans,
+that city so memorable for her sieges. The battering-rams (for Attila
+possessed these engines of war) were shaking the walls of the city, and
+the inhabitants feared that only ruin was before them. But their Bishop,
+Anianus, bade them be of good courage, and foretold that deliverance
+would reach them on the 24th of June. On that day, while they were
+praying in the church, Anianus sent a messenger to mount the ramparts
+and see if help were approaching. The messenger went once, twice, in
+vain. The third time he brought word that a cloud of dust was seen upon
+the horizon. It was caused by the troops of Aetius and Theodoric, who,
+after some delay and wavering of purpose, had joined forces and were
+approaching to deliver the city. Attila, for some reason with which we
+are not acquainted, declined to await their attack, and began to retrace
+his steps towards the Rhine. Doubtless his vast army was difficult to
+feed, and difficult to keep together, in the country which they had
+so ruthlessly ravaged; and probably Attila foresaw great danger in
+attempting to cross the broad Loire in the face of a large army, which
+united Gothic courage to Roman science of war. Whatever the cause, he
+retreated, and reached the city of Troyes, which he consented to exempt
+from pillage on condition that the Bishop, St. Lupus, whose saintly
+appearance awed and impressed him, should accompany him as far as the
+Rhine. On the Mauriac plain, some five miles from Troyes, the pursuing
+armies came up with him; and here was fought that ‘cruel, manifold,
+monstrous, and stubborn battle[84]’ to which historians have given, not
+quite correctly, the name of the Battle of Châlons.
+
+[Sidenote: _Battle of Châlons. July? 451._]
+
+Before the fight began, Attila consulted the rude auguries of his nation,
+drawn from the inspection of the bowels of a sheep and the markings of
+some bones. The soothsayers predicted ‘ill fortune to the Huns,’ but
+qualified it with the assurance that the leader of their foes should
+fall. The hope that Aetius, the one great Roman champion, would perish,
+seemed to console Attila for the presage of his own defeat.
+
+It was indeed a battle of many nations. Under the standards of the king
+of the Huns marched Ostrogoths, Gepidae, Heruli, and a host of less-known
+nationalities, Teutonic, Slavonic, and Turanian. The three kings of the
+Ostrogoths, and especially the eldest of them, Walamir, and Ardaric,
+king of the Gepidae, were Attila’s chief advisers and lieutenants on the
+battle-field.
+
+The allied army, on the other hand, contained not only Visigoths, who
+were posted on the right wing, and Romans, who were on the left, but
+Franks, Saxons, Bretons, Burgundians, and a number of other tribes
+settled in Gaul. Chief among these lesser nationalities were the Alans,
+who were settled at Valence on the Rhone. They were near of kin to the
+Huns, and their king, Sangiban, was suspected of intending to desert to
+them on the battle-field. He was therefore placed in the centre of the
+allied line, tightly wedged in between Romans and Visigoths, both of whom
+watched his movements narrowly and prevented him from accomplishing the
+meditated treachery.
+
+[Sidenote: _Hunnish defeat._]
+
+Beyond this statement as to the Alans, and Attila’s orders to his troops
+to neglect the Romans and strike hardest at the Visigoths, we hear little
+or nothing as to the tactics of the day. The battle began at three in
+the afternoon, and raged on, upon a line of immense length, till the
+end of the July day. Theodoric, the Visigothic king, was thrown from
+his horse and accidentally trampled to death by his own countrymen. His
+men, however, rushed forward and broke the Hunnish line. Attila himself
+fled and took shelter behind his rampart of waggons. Thorismund, son of
+Theodoric, and Aetius both lost their way in the darkness which had now
+come on, and nearly fell victims to their rashness, having actually
+wandered into the quarters of the foe.
+
+[Sidenote: _Results of the battle._]
+
+The next morning dawned upon a ghastly sight. It is said that 177,000
+men were slain in the ‘manifold and monstrous battle.’ This number
+represents a slaughter nearly twice as great as that at Leipsic, with all
+the improvements in the machinery of destruction which fifteen centuries
+have wrought. It is doubtful whether we ought to listen with perfect
+faith to calculations which were probably very hasty and fragmentary.
+But it is not doubtful that the slaughter on the Mauriac plain was one
+of the greatest ever witnessed on any battle-field before the invention
+of gunpowder. And, measured by its results, the battle was even greater
+than when we take account of the carnage. For this was pre-eminently one
+of ‘the decisive battles of history,’ since it settled the question of
+supremacy in Europe against the Hun, the squalid, unprogressive heathen
+Tartar, and kept the ground clear for the Romance, the Teutonic, and the
+Slavic peoples.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila retreats from Gaul. 451-2._]
+
+The expectations of both armies that the battle would be renewed on the
+morrow were not fulfilled. Attila, behind his entrenchments, bade his
+trumpets sound, and feigned a fresh attack, but all the time he knew
+himself beaten, and had a pyre of Hunnish saddles prepared, into which,
+had his entrenchments been stormed, he would have cast himself headlong,
+that living or dead he might escape the insults of his foes. Meanwhile
+the Goths, having at length found their old king’s body, buried him on
+the battle-field to the music of their rough war-songs. Thorismund then
+marched rapidly to Toulouse to claim his father’s throne. Aetius also
+quitted the field, and Attila was saved from utter destruction, whether
+owing to the too great prudence of the allies or to a want of perfect
+harmony between them, it is impossible now to determine. The Hunnish
+king reached the Rhine without further molestation, and thence sent the
+venerable Bishop Lupus back to Troyes, asking him to pray to the Almighty
+for the welfare of his late entertainer.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila’s invasion of Italy, 452._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Siege of Aquileia._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aquileia taken and destroyed._]
+
+The next year (452) Attila determined to wipe out the shame of his defeat
+by an invasion, not this time of Gaul, but of Italy. He crossed the
+Julian Alps, entered Venetia by the well-known route, trodden of late by
+so many armies, and invested the great, the hitherto impregnable city of
+Aquileia. In two stubborn sieges at least, probably in more, this city
+had shown herself the unconquerable bulwark of North-east Italy; and now,
+so long was the investment by the Huns vainly protracted, that it seemed
+as if she would once more prove her title to that name. Attila was about
+to abandon the siege in despair, when suddenly looking up, he beheld the
+storks collecting their young broods about them and preparing to fly
+from the city. The omen struck him. He pointed it out to his soldiers,
+and in a short, inspiriting speech, urged them to renew their attack on
+a city which, as the heaven-guided instinct of the birds told them, was
+doomed to ruin. The appeal was fatally successful. The fierce Huns once
+more moved their engines against the walls; they effected a practicable
+breach; they swarmed in; they slew, they pillaged, they ravished. The
+rage of Attila at his long detention before the walls made the usual
+savagery of Tartar destruction more savage; and soon there was nothing
+left of Aquileia—its Mint, its Baths, its Theatres—but a smoking heap of
+ruins. Tradition says that Attila caused a mound to be raised at Udine,
+twenty miles distant, and stood on the top of it to see the flames ascend
+from the burning city.
+
+[Sidenote: _Other Adriatic cities ruined._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Founders of Venice._]
+
+All the sister cities, beautiful and stately, which were mirrored in the
+waters of the North-western Adriatic, shared the fate of Aquileia. The
+Roman colony of Concordia; Altinum, with its fair white villas; Patavium,
+the birthplace of Livy, were levelled with the ground. A few trembling
+fugitives from all these cities, including, perhaps, some from Aquileia
+herself, sought shelter in the wide lagoons at the mouths of the Piave
+and the Brenta. These miserable refugees founded a gorgeous city, whose
+fame spread far and wide over all lands, and whose merchandise was sold
+even on those dreary plains of Central Asia over which Attila’s ancestors
+once wandered. She was the affianced City of the Sea—Venice.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attila at Milan._]
+
+Attila marched westwards through the broad green plain which we now
+call Lombardy, and as he went his fury somewhat abated. All the cities,
+Verona, Pavia, Milan, and the rest opened their gates to him; and in
+all, the Huns plundered at their will, but the lives of the inhabitants
+were spared and the buildings were left unburned. At Milan, Attila
+saw with contemptuous amusement a picture representing the Scythians
+prostrate under the feet of the Eastern and Western Emperors. He allowed
+the picture to remain, but ordered an artist to paint on the opposite
+wall the King of the Huns seated on his throne, with Theodosius and
+Valentinian emptying their sacks of _aurei_ at his feet.
+
+[Sidenote: _Embassy of Pope Leo._]
+
+During all this time abject terror reigned in the City of Rome, where,
+and not at Ravenna, the Emperor appears to have been residing. Even the
+stout heart of Aetius seems to have failed him, and he is said to have
+counselled Valentinian to flee from Italy, probably to the Narbonensian
+Gaul, almost the only Western province which was left to Rome. However,
+it was decided to try what effect a humble embassy might have in
+mitigating the wrath of the terrible Hun. Two of the highest officials
+in the Empire were sent on this embassy, and with them went Pope Leo I,
+greatest in character and mental gifts of all the men who had yet sat in
+the chair of St. Peter, rightly named Leo, for a more lion-hearted man
+had not been found even among the Consuls and Emperors of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its success._]
+
+The embassy found the Hunnish king by the banks of the Mincio, probably
+not far from the city of Mantua. Strange to say, they won a peaceful and
+easy victory. ‘[85]He laid aside his fury and excitement, and returning
+by the way that he had come, that is to say beyond the Danube, he
+departed with the promise of peace, uttering, however, this one warning
+and threat above all others, that he would bring yet heavier calamities
+upon Italy unless they sent to him Honoria, with the portion of the
+Imperial treasure which was her due.’ We shall probably seek in vain for
+any reasons of state-craft which could have induced Attila thus to forego
+the supreme prize of barbarian conquest, the sack of Rome, when victory
+lay ready to his hand. Apparently the reason assigned by contemporary
+chroniclers is the true one. It was the influence exerted over him by
+the saintly majesty of Leo, which induced him to sheathe the sword and
+to be satisfied with promise of tribute when he might have grasped the
+reality of plunder. There was in Attila’s character, with all its brutal
+savageness, something almost like magnanimity, a certain readiness, when
+his own greatness was acknowledged and when his enemy had humbled himself
+in the dust before him, to accept his humiliation, and if he trampled,
+not to trample him to death. There was also in his heathen soul some
+capacity of being impressed by those whose spirits really rose above
+the clash of the kingdoms of the world, into the serener air of the
+Kingdom of God. There may possibly have been mingled with this feeling a
+remembrance of the premature death of Alaric which followed so soon upon
+his conquest of the Eternal City, and a fear that he too, if he sacked
+Rome, might find his grave in Italy.
+
+Whatever the cause, there can be no doubt that the success of Pope Leo,
+when the Emperor and the Master of the Soldiery confessed that they saw
+only ruin before them, profoundly stirred the hearts of the Roman people.
+The events of the year 452 contributed enormously to raise the Vatican
+above the Palatine, and to give the Pope the moral, if not yet the
+political, sovereignty of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of Attila, 453._]
+
+If Attila had planned for himself the luxury of another raid upon
+Italy in 453, his schemes were suddenly and unexpectedly frustrated.
+In addition to the many wives whom he already possessed, he married a
+beautiful damsel named Ildico. At the wedding banquet he drank copiously,
+and afterwards slept the sleep of intoxication. In the midst of it he was
+attacked by a violent bleeding from the nose, which proved fatal to him
+in his drunken stupor. That same night, it is said, the brave Emperor
+Marcian had a dream, in which he saw the bow of Attila broken.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Hunnish power broken. 454._]
+
+The great Hunnish king received a magnificent burial from his people.
+Three coffins, one of gold, one of silver, one of iron, enclosed his
+body, but the precise place of his burial was kept a secret. After his
+death the ascendancy which by his own tremendous force of character he
+had been able to exert over many subject nations, suddenly vanished. His
+sons proposed to partition his realm among themselves. The auxiliary
+peoples resented the proposal: the great confederacy was broken up:
+Ostrogoths, Gepidae, and Heruli met the young Hunnish kings in battle by
+the Pannonian river Netad. Attila’s sons were beaten, his first-born
+slain, the rest put to flight. Ernak, his father’s favourite, became a
+subject-ally of the Eastern Emperor, and ruled at the mouth of the Danube.
+
+But the great Hunnish Empire after its short and terrible day of dominion
+was now a thing of the past, a vanished nightmare of the nations. The
+fierce Hun had himself built nothing that endured, though indirectly he
+had contributed to three of the greatest changes in Europe,—the ‘making
+of England,’ the establishment of the Papal Supremacy, the foundation of
+Venice.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VII.
+
+GAISERIC.
+
+
+We have seen that though the north-east corner of Italy was cruelly
+ravaged by the Huns, the Eternal City herself escaped the degradation
+of their presence as conquerors. But the blow, which had been averted
+by the embassy of Pope Leo, fell three years later (455), the agents
+of destruction being now, not the Huns, but the VANDALS. I purposely
+abstained in my last lecture from making any but the slightest allusion
+to the Vandal conquest of Africa (428-439), though that was in fact
+one of the most important events under the government of Placidia, and
+certainly the event which produced the most permanently disastrous
+consequences for Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Early history of the Vandals._]
+
+If we go back from the fifth century after Christ to the first, we shall
+find that the Vandals were then dwelling not far from the Baltic coast in
+the countries which we now call West Prussia and Posen. A little later
+on, sharing the general southward movement of all these races, they
+appear in Silesia and give their name to the _Vandalici Montes_, which
+are the same that are now called Riesengebirge, the Mountains of the
+Giants. Possibly there may be in the new name some dim remembrance of
+the old, for we are told[86] that the Vandals, as well as the Gepidae,
+were nearly allied in blood to the Goths, and like them were tall of
+stature, fair-skinned, yellow-haired, and handsome.
+
+In the reign of Marcus Aurelius (171) we find them in the plains of
+Hungary warring against the Romans. Three years later they have become
+the allies of Rome, and this attitude of friendship towards the Empire
+is generally maintained by them for more than two centuries (174-406).
+Especially was this the case in the latter part of the reign of the
+Emperor Constantine (330), when the Vandals had suffered a terrible and
+well-nigh exterminating defeat at the hands of their Gothic kindred,
+by the banks of the river Marisia. The survivors of that terrible day
+humbly pleaded for permission to enter the province of Pannonia on the
+western shore of the Danube, and there to dwell as _foederati_ under
+the protection of the Empire. For more than sixty years they faithfully
+observed this treaty. This was probably the time in which they embraced
+the Christian faith under that Arian form of it which Ulfilas had
+preached to the Goths. Many of their chiefs doubtless entered the service
+of the Emperors as life-guardsmen, and it was probably in this way that
+the father of the great Stilicho, though a Vandal, rose high enough to
+prepare a splendid position for his son.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Vandals enter Gaul, 406._]
+
+The calumniators of Stilicho attributed to him, probably most unjustly,
+a share in the next development of Vandal history. It came to pass in
+the year 406, in the interval of suspense between the first and second
+invasions of Alaric, and just after the exhausting campaign with the
+terrible Radagaisus, that (as has been already mentioned) three great
+barbarian hordes, taking advantage of the defenceless state of the
+Rhine-frontier, denuded of its legions for the defence of Italy, poured
+westwards into the provinces of Gaul. These three tribes were the
+_Suevi_, a name of puzzling indefiniteness, once including almost all
+the High-German family of nations; the _Alans_, a Tartar horde who had
+come into Europe at the same time as the Huns, but had pressed further
+westwards than their kinsmen; and the _Vandals_.
+
+[Sidenote: _War with the Franks._]
+
+If Stilicho had anything whatever to do with the invitation or the
+permission given to these barbarian hordes to enter Gaul, it is
+probable[87] that he did it in the hope of finding in them a counterpoise
+to the Franks, who were already appearing with menacing strength in the
+north-eastern provinces of that country. At any rate the Franks are the
+only enemy that we hear of as attempting to bar their way. A great battle
+was fought, in which Godigisclus, the Vandal king, fell with 20,000 of
+his followers, and only the timely intervention of Respendial, King of
+the Alans, saved the Vandals from utter destruction.
+
+[Sidenote: _Three years of ravage, 407-409._]
+
+Of the three years which followed (407-409) we know nothing, but must
+imagine the three confederated nations marching up and down in Gaul
+during that period, slaying and plundering at their will. Then, by the
+internal discords of the Empire, a fresh prospect of rapine was opened
+out before them. The British usurper, Constantine, who had penetrated
+with his legions into Spain, found his precarious throne undermined by
+one of his officers named Gerontius, who proclaimed his son Maximus
+Emperor. While usurper and sub-usurper were quarrelling, the defence of
+the Empire, which both pretended to maintain, was neglected. The passes
+of the Pyrenees, which had hitherto been easily and faithfully guarded,
+were left open to the enemy, and the three confederate nations marching
+through them, found the rich and fruitful peninsula of Spain, which had
+enjoyed four centuries of unbroken peace, at their mercy. The day of the
+month, even the day of the week of this terrible invasion, was recorded
+by the Spanish chroniclers, faithfully reproducing the deep dint which it
+had made on the memories of their countrymen.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Vandals and their confederates enter Spain, 28 Sept.
+409._]
+
+[Sidenote: _413._]
+
+‘In this year’ (409) ‘the Alani and Wandali and Suevi entered the
+provinces of Spain, on the 28th of September, on the third day of the
+week[88].’ After wandering about for some time, enjoying the luxury
+of promiscuous pillage, they divided the country in some rough
+fashion between them, the Suevi taking to themselves Gallicia in the
+north-western corner of Spain, the Alans, Lusitania on the west and the
+province of Carthagena on the east. The Vandals were divided into two
+branches, the smaller of whom, the Asdingi, dwelt in Gallicia near to
+the Suevi, while the powerful clan of the Silingi occupied the fertile
+province of Baetica in the south. To these entered, four years after,
+the Visigoths under Ataulfus: and by these four, or if we choose so to
+consider them, five barbarian nations, as well as by the Roman garrisons
+in the strong cities which remained like islands amid the barbarian
+flood, the hapless provinces of Spain were ruled and plundered. Famine
+soon followed in the train of war. Women were accused of eating their own
+children: and some Visigothic soldiers bought of some Vandals a small
+mug-full of wheat for an aureus (= 12 shillings).
+
+[Sidenote: _Internecine war between the barbarians in Spain, 413-428._]
+
+I need not trouble you with the details of the wars which raged in
+Spain from 413 to 428. The Visigoths were generally in alliance with
+the Empire, and fought their fellow-barbarians, especially the Vandals,
+with whom they had a long-standing family quarrel, with a ferocity which
+astonished the Romans. First the Silingian Vandals in Baetica and then
+the Alans sustained crushing defeats at their hands: and the scanty
+remnants of these tribes joined themselves to the Asdingian Vandals,
+who under their king Gunderic, son of Godigisclus, had now, from the
+most insignificant, become the most powerful nation in the Peninsula,
+especially as the Visigoths at this time seem to have withdrawn most
+of their men north of the Pyrenees, being intent on building up their
+dominion in Southern Gaul.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Vandals occupy Andalusia, 420._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of King Gunderic, 427._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Accession of Gaiseric._]
+
+In 420 the Asdingian Vandals, with their dependents the Alans marched
+across Spain and took up their quarters in the fertile Baetica, where
+their kinsmen formerly dwelt. In 422, Gunderic won a decisive victory
+over Castinus, the Roman Master of the Soldiery, leaving 20,000 Imperial
+soldiers dead upon the field. In 425 he took the great city of Hispalis
+(Seville), and fitted out a naval expedition for the conquest of the
+Balearic Islands. In 427 Gunderic died,—‘attacked by a demon,’ says a
+Spanish chronicler, ‘by the just judgment of God, to punish him for
+having stretched forth his hand against the Church of Seville,’ and
+he was succeeded by GAISERIC[89], the illegitimate son of his father
+Godigisclus.
+
+[Sidenote: _Gaiseric invited by Count Bonifacius to enter Africa, 427._]
+
+Such was the position of affairs in Spain when a messenger came from
+Bonifacius, Count of Africa, inviting the Vandals to cross the sea
+and wrest that province from the Empire. The cause of this strange
+proposition is fully told us by one historian[90], writing a hundred
+years after the event, and though accurate and trustworthy for his own
+times, very apt to confuse persons and places of which he had no personal
+knowledge. His narrative has been lately subjected to a severe analysis
+by a great master of historical criticism[91], who has shown how many
+questionable elements it contains. Still, in the absence of all other
+information, it holds the field, and I will therefore, with this caution,
+tell the story in the words of Procopius himself.
+
+[Sidenote: _Procopius’s story of the rivalry between Aetius and
+Bonifacius._]
+
+‘The calamity of Africa came to pass in this fashion. There were two
+Roman generals, Aetius and Bonifacius, both able men, and in knowledge
+of the art of war second to none of their time. Between these men
+jealousies arose as to the government of the Empire: but so great were
+their magnanimity and other virtues that if any one were to call each
+of them the last of the Romans he would not be far from the truth, so
+completely had all the glory of Rome become merged in these two men. One
+of these two men, Bonifacius, Placidia set over the whole of Africa,
+hereby offending Aetius, who, however, did not show his displeasure, for
+the ill-feeling between them had not yet produced an open rupture, but
+was hidden under the mask of friendship.
+
+‘Now when Bonifacius had departed for Africa, Aetius began to calumniate
+him to Placidia as a man who aspired to the Imperial dignity and would
+wrest Africa from her and the Emperor. He assured her that it would
+not be difficult to bring this matter to the test, for if she summoned
+Bonifacius to Rome, he would not come. When the lady heard this, she
+approved and followed the advice of Aetius. The latter, however, had
+previously written secretly to Bonifacius that the Emperor’s mother was
+laying snares for his destruction, and as a token of the truth of his
+assertion he told him that he would find himself without cause suddenly
+recalled. Hearkening to this warning of Aetius but keeping a profound
+silence concerning it, when the messengers arrived to invite him to the
+Imperial Court he declared that he would not obey the Emperor or his
+mother either. Placidia, on the receipt of this news, looked upon Aetius
+as a most faithful servant of the throne, but regarded Bonifacius with
+suspicion. The latter, feeling himself unable to cope with the power of
+the Emperor, yet accounting himself a doomed man if he started for Rome,
+began to consider how he could attach the Vandals to his cause, who had
+obtained possession of the neighbouring province of Spain. Bonifacius,
+then, having sent to Spain certain of the most influential of his
+friends, concluded a treaty on terms of equality with both the sons of
+Godigisclus, to the effect that each of them should receive a third part
+of Africa, and that if any one of the three were attacked in war, his
+danger should be shared by the other two.’
+
+[Sidenote: _War between Vandals and Suevi._]
+
+[Sidenote: _428. Numbering of the people._]
+
+So far Procopius. It will be seen that he makes Bonifacius send his
+invitation to both Kings of the Vandals, but if this were so, certainly
+before the departure of the host from Spain, Gunderic was dead and
+Gaiseric was sole ruler of his nation. While he was engaged in his
+preparations for departure, the King of the Suevi made a devastating
+inroad on the northern part of the Vandal possessions. To show that he
+was not yet to be thus contumeliously ignored even on Spanish territory,
+Gaiseric suspended his African projects for a while, turned round and
+inflicted on the Suevi a bloody defeat, after which their king was
+drowned in the waters of the Gaudiana. Then resuming his plans for the
+descent upon Africa, he collected his people (or rather his two peoples,
+for he was now always saluted as King of the Vandals and Alans) upon the
+sunny Andalusian shore. Here in the month of May, 428[92], he had his
+nation-army numbered, and found all the males, including old men and
+little children, to amount to 80,000. Another computation, which it is
+difficult to reconcile with this unless the limits of age for military
+service were very wide, makes the warriors alone amount to 50,000 men.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Vandals transported to Africa._]
+
+The ships which Bonifacius, Count of Africa, supplied from the great port
+of Carthage, co-operating with the little fleet of Gaiseric, carried this
+great mass of persons, certainly not fewer than 160,000 in number, to
+the African coast and landed them, probably in the province of Numidia.
+Thus was the dream of Alaric realised by another German chieftain, and
+thus did the intrigues and counter-intrigues of Roman officials enable
+a Teutonic invader to strike at Rome in her most vulnerable point, the
+great grain-producing provinces of Africa.
+
+[Sidenote: _428. Bonifacius repents of his treason and is reconciled to
+Placidia._]
+
+Scarcely had the Vandals landed on the African coast when the alliance
+between them and Bonifacius, born of treachery and misunderstanding,
+died in the daylight of truth. To resume the narrative of Procopius.
+‘All those at Rome who were well acquainted with Bonifacius, reflecting
+on his character and the extreme improbability of his being so far
+carried away by the desire of reigning, were filled with wonder at what
+had taken place. Some of these persons, by order of Placidia, proceeded
+to Carthage, conversed with Bonifacius, saw the letters of Aetius, and
+understanding the whole intrigue returned with all speed to Rome and
+explained the position in which Bonifacius had been placed. Placidia,
+filled with astonishment, did not dare openly to blame Aetius, so great
+was his power and so necessary his help, in the lamentable state into
+which the Empire was falling. But calling for the friends of Bonifacius,
+she explained to them the secret counsels of Aetius, and binding them
+to secrecy by an oath adjured them, if it were possible, to recall him
+to the love of his country, and not to allow the Roman Empire to fall
+under the yoke of the barbarians. When Bonifacius understood all these
+things, he was filled with repentance for his late designs and for the
+treaty which he had made with the barbarians, and besought them, with the
+lure of many promises, that they would depart from Africa. But as the
+Vandals would not listen to his words, but rather taunted him with his
+broken faith towards them, he was forced to engage in battle with them,
+and being defeated withdrew to Hippo Regius, a very strong city by the
+sea-coast of Numidia.
+
+[Sidenote: _Siege of Hippo, June, 430 to July, 431._]
+
+‘As the Vandals after a long time could neither take Hippo by storm nor
+induce it to surrender, and were moreover themselves beginning to suffer
+from hunger, they broke up the siege. Not long after, Bonifacius and the
+Romans under his command joined forces with an army sent from Byzantium
+under the command of Aspar, and dared to try the fortune of war in a
+great pitched battle, but being much inferior to the enemy, they fled
+whither they could, and Aspar returned to his own land. But Bonifacius
+betook himself to the Court of Placidia, and there completely purged
+himself of the suspicions which had been entertained of him.’
+
+[Sidenote: _432._]
+
+From other sources we learn that Placidia not only forgave Bonifacius
+but received him into high favour, and conferred upon him the dignity
+of Master of the Soldiery. Apparently he would have supplanted Aetius
+in his position of Chief Counsellor of the Empress and virtual ruler
+of the Empire, but at this moment Aetius returned with his army from a
+victorious campaign against the Franks, and joined battle with his foe.
+Aetius was defeated, but Bonifacius lost his life, according to one
+account, in single combat with his rival, and, strange to say, in the act
+of dying, adjured his wife to re-marry with Aetius if the death of _his_
+wife should make such wedlock possible, as he and no other of living
+Romans was worthy to be the successor as he had been the conqueror of
+Bonifacius.
+
+[Sidenote: _Strange character of this story._]
+
+The whole story of the rivalry of these two Imperial generals is strange,
+romantic, almost self-contradictory. Contemporary annalists scarcely
+mention it; later historians tell us a good deal which it is hardly
+possible that they could have known. We should be disposed to send it
+back into the region of romance, to which it seems properly to belong,
+but for this one clear and all-important fact—that the Roman governor of
+Africa did himself promote the passage of the Vandals into his province,
+and only when it was too late and the irretrievable mischief was done,
+turned against them, and by vain threats and vainer promises, sought to
+persuade them to leave the fruitful land into which he had given them
+entrance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _Result of the Vandal migrations._]
+
+Thus, then, at length were the dwellers by the Elbe and the Oder
+settled on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. In 406 they were in
+Pannonia, in 439 in Carthage. Thirty-three years, the ordinary length of
+a generation, had brought them from Austria to Tunis, and in their way
+they had ravaged Languedoc and set up a short-lived kingdom in Andalusia.
+Remembering always that it was not a mere army, but a nation, which thus
+roamed over mountains and rivers and changed its place of abode from
+continent to continent, we feel that the period of history of which we
+are now treating is indeed well named by the Germans _Völker-wanderung_,
+‘the migration of the nations.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Death of St. Augustine during the siege of Hippo, 28 Aug.
+430._]
+
+[Sidenote: ‘_Vandalism._’]
+
+The siege of Hippo Regius (Bona), which has been already alluded to by
+Procopius, lasted for a little more than thirteen months (June 430 to
+July 431), and was, as has been already said, one of the few failures
+of the Vandals. It was memorable in the history of the Church, because
+the Bishop of Hippo—the greatest of all the bishops of the African
+Church—St. Augustine, was present within the city at its commencement,
+and died in the third month of the blockade. His biographer, Possidius,
+Bishop of Calama, was with him at the end; and from his hand we have an
+interesting picture of the venerable old man’s last days, sitting, as he
+did, surrounded by bishops from the whole province of Africa, who had
+seen their cities burned, their churches levelled with the ground, the
+fruit-trees of the agriculturists torn up by the roots. It was the fury
+of this first onslaught, and the especial delight taken by the heretical
+barbarians in the destruction of churches, which caused their name to
+become a synonym for the demolishers of beautiful buildings. Practically,
+when we speak of Vandalism, we now generally think of some brutal outrage
+perpetrated on a temple or a statue; and this in the fifth century would
+be more probably the work of fanatic monk than of Vandal barbarian.
+But the deeds of the followers of Gaiseric during the first fury of
+their conquest, and afterwards, were sufficiently brutal to excuse the
+opprobrium which the usage of fourteen centuries has linked indissolubly
+with their name.
+
+[Sidenote: _Temporary peace with the Empire, 11 Feb. 435._]
+
+After seven years of desolating warfare, peace was concluded between
+Gaiseric and the Empire. Aetius no doubt recognised that the fatal
+work of Bonifacius could not be undone, nor the 50,000 Vandal and Alan
+warriors (reinforced probably by many Moorish nomads and ruined Roman
+Provincials) be forced to relinquish their prey. On his part Gaiseric had
+had enough of plundering; he wished now to occupy and to rule, and he
+meant to make the Romans pay a costly price for the peace which he was
+willing to concede to them. The strong city of Hippo, which he had failed
+to conquer by force of arms, became his as the result of negotiation. He
+had Numidia and the larger part of the African territory secured to him
+as his lawful possession, perhaps on the promised payment of a yearly
+tribute[93] to the Emperor, and he had to promise to leave unmolested
+Carthage, the capital of the Roman Diocese and that part of the Province
+which immediately adjoined it, a rich and fertile district certainly,
+and the gem of the whole dominion. His son Huneric was sent to Rome as a
+hostage for the fulfilment of this condition.
+
+[Sidenote: _Gaiseric pounces on Carthage, 19 Oct. 439._]
+
+The peace seemed like a confession of something like failure on the
+part of the Vandal conqueror. But he had only ‘recoiled in order to
+make a bolder spring.’ He waited his time; on some pretence or other he
+obtained the return of his hostage-son, and then, while Aetius was busy
+warring with the Visigoths in Gaul, and Attila from his Hungarian village
+was beginning to worry Placidia with his embassies and his armaments,
+suddenly, on the 19th of October, 439, Gaiseric entered Carthage and made
+all the vast wealth of the African capital his own. Torture was freely
+used to compel some of the citizens to yield up to him their hidden
+stores.
+
+[Sidenote: _Appearance and character of Gaiseric._]
+
+The Vandal king had now reached, apparently, the summit of his ambition.
+Lord of the Roman Provinces of Africa and of the great city of Carthage,
+he felt himself indeed a king; and whatever title he may have borne
+before, he dated his reign—a reign which lasted thirty-seven years—from
+this conquest. Like Ataulfus, like Attila (one might add, like Napoleon
+and like Wellington), he was somewhat under the usual size, and he
+had a limp in his gait owing to a fall from his horse. He was, by the
+consenting testimony of all contemporary historians, a man of great
+ability, admirably preparing his means to compass the desired ends,
+simple in his habits, of few words, patient, and tenacious of purpose;
+but on the other hand, sullen in his wrath, covetous, always stirring
+up strife and vexing the nations, and absolutely ruthless towards all
+who crossed his path[94]. In Alaric, notwithstanding some outbursts of
+barbaric rage, there was much that was chivalrous and noble. Even the
+dark soul of Attila was irradiated with fitful gleams of generosity
+and compassion. But in Gaiseric I do not think we can discern a single
+lineament of nobleness. All is hard, cruel, vulgar in his remorseless
+soul. Alas that we must add, all is also successful in his life. This
+cruel and greedy, but supremely able barbarian succeeded where the nobler
+Alaric and the gentler Ataulfus had failed.
+
+[Sidenote: _His maritime power and piratical expeditions._]
+
+His magnificent power of adapting means to ends was well displayed in
+the change which he made in the habits of his nation after he had become
+master of Carthage. The Vandals, who had dwelt so long on the skirts
+of the Riesengebirge, in the highlands of Austria, or in the plains of
+Hungary, were essentially an inland people, who only dabbled a little
+in seamanship, when they reached the Andalusian shore. But now that the
+fleets, the arsenal, the docks of Carthage were all their own, now that
+its harbour—one of the finest in the Old World—reflected everywhere
+the Vandal flag, they became under Gaiseric’s guidance the first naval
+power on the Mediterranean, and he, by a singular anticipation of the
+history of the Barbary States in later days, made himself the great
+Buccaneer-King. With every returning spring his long ships of war were
+made ready in the harbour. Sometimes he ravaged Sicily, sometimes the
+southern coasts of Italy, leading the inhabitants of one city into
+captivity, throwing down the walls of another, wasting the whole country
+with his wide-reaching raids. Then when the very poverty of these lands
+frighted him away from their devastated shores, he turned to the Eastern
+Empire. Illyricum, Peloponnesus, the islands of the Ionian and Aegean
+seas, all that bore the name of Hellas, bewailed the visits of Gaiseric.
+Then to Italy and Sicily again, to try if there were any nook which
+had hitherto escaped his visitations. At length the work became almost
+monotonous, and the choice of a victim hard. Once when the fleet had
+weighed anchor and was sailing forth from the broad harbour of Carthage,
+the helmsman turned to the king and asked for what port he should steer.
+‘For the men with whom God is angry,’ answered the Vandal king, and left
+the winds and the waters to settle the question who were the proper
+objects of the wrath of Heaven.
+
+[Sidenote: _Vandal land-settlement._]
+
+The land-settlement of the Vandals and the order of succession to the
+Vandal throne were two subjects to which Gaiseric’s legislative energies
+were especially directed. (1) The rich Province in which Carthage was
+situated, called Zeugitana, or the Proconsular Province, the last
+of all the acquisitions of the Vandals, was portioned out among the
+warriors of the nation, who received these estates as an inheritance
+to be transmitted to their children, and who paid no taxes of any kind
+for them. In the other Provinces, far larger in extent but not nearly
+so fertile in quality, lay the vast domains of Gaiseric and his sons,
+consisting of estates forcibly taken away from their Roman owners, often
+men of culture and noble birth, who were in some cases compelled to
+cultivate as slaves the lands of which the invader had despoiled them.
+The poor and barren lands were for the most part left to their former
+owners, but so burdened with taxes and obligations of service that the
+unhappy possessors could barely make a livelihood out of them. Many of
+these unhappy possessors tried to flee, but were arrested and executed,
+sundry grievous charges being brought against them, especially the one
+unforgivable sin of concealing treasure from Gaiseric. ‘Thus,’ as the
+historian[95] says, ‘did the Provincials of Africa fall into every kind
+of misery.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Law of succession to the throne._]
+
+(2) As for the succession to the throne, in order to avert the rivalries
+and civil wars which often resulted from the elective character of
+Teutonic royalty, and at the same time to prevent the crown from being
+worn by a fatuous boy like Honorius or Valentinian, he ordained that the
+oldest living male among his descendants should, on the death of each
+reigning monarch, ascend the Vandal throne. The law was like that which
+has regulated the succession of the Ottoman Sultans and the Egyptian
+Pashas. It worked smoothly for near sixty years after the death of
+Gaiseric, who was succeeded by his eldest son Huneric, he by his two
+nephews, Gunthamund and Thrasamund, and the latter of these by his cousin
+Hilderic, the son of Huneric. Then dissensions broke out: Hilderic was
+dethroned and finally put to death by his cousin Gelimer, but religious
+differences—for Gelimer was an Arian and Hilderic a Catholic—were the
+chief cause of these disputes, for which I am not sure that we can fairly
+blame the Vandal law of succession.
+
+[Sidenote: _Persecution of the Catholics._]
+
+In this allusion to religious differences I have touched upon that
+which was the distinguishing and the shameful characteristic of the
+Vandal kingdom, especially under Gaiseric and his son; I mean, their
+brutal persecution of the Catholics. In their profession of Arianism the
+Vandals, as we have seen, only followed the example of all the other
+barbarian nations who had embraced Christianity in any form. Naturally
+Attila, who worshipped a naked sword, while hating all priests and
+coveting their costly Communion-plate, was under no temptation to treat
+the orthodox believers in the Homoousion worse than the Arian believers
+in the Homoiousion (if any such there yet remained), but would slay both
+with ferocious impartiality. Naturally, too, the still heathen ancestors
+of Clovis robbed and murdered the Catholic bishops of Belgic Gaul simply
+as rich and civilised men, without any special antipathy to them on
+account of their Catholicism. With the Visigoths, Suevi, and Burgundians
+the case was different. They were parties to the long Arian lawsuit,
+and were disposed to depress, and sometimes to harass, the Athanasian
+litigants on the other side, but they did not systematically persecute,
+and there are few if any instances of Catholics actually put to death by
+them for their faith.
+
+Gaiseric, however, seems to have hugged his Arian belief with the
+fanatical love of a convert, and to have hated the Nicene Confession
+with the bitter hatred of an apostate. It was indeed reported[96] in
+Spain that such was the very truth, that he had been once a Catholic
+and had ‘apostatised to the Arian infidelity’: but it is difficult to
+understand how the son of King Godigisclus can have been brought up in
+the Athanasian faith, unless his illegitimate birth permitted him to be
+trained by his mother, probably a Gaulish concubine of the king, in the
+despised faith of the Roman Provincials.
+
+Whatever the cause there can be no doubt that Gaiseric detested the
+Catholic faith, the faith of the vast majority of his new subjects, and
+showed that detestation by acts of savage cruelty. The churches were not
+merely plundered—that the barbarian hunger for gold would sufficiently
+account for—but wantonly burned: and insult was sometimes added to
+rapine, as when the beautiful altar-cloths were cut up and made into
+shirts and drawers for the grooms of a barbarian officer. In the regions
+which paid tribute to the Palace the bishops were accused of stirring up
+the people to revolt, and of likening the king to Pharaoh, Holofernes,
+and Nebuchadnezzar: and a number of them were sent into exile. The
+Bishop of Carthage, with several of his clergy, was sent to sea in a
+crazy ship, which it was hoped would founder on the voyage, but arrived
+safe but penniless on the shores of Campania. The Metropolitan Church of
+Carthage was forbidden to elect any successor to the exile, and seems to
+have remained for twenty years or more ‘widowed of its bishop.’ The same
+measure was meted out to a great number of African Churches, evidently
+with the intention of breaking down their episcopal organisation for ever.
+
+In his own palace Gaiseric seemed as if he could not endure the presence
+of an adherent of the rival creed. Sebastian, the son-in-law of
+Bonifacius, though a man who was on other grounds acceptable at Court and
+influential with the king, was put to death because he refused to change
+his religion. Count Armogast, for the same refusal, was stretched upon
+the rack, hung head downwards from the ceiling by one foot, and at last
+sent to do the work of a ditcher and a shepherd in the fields, where he
+soon died of his hardships.
+
+These and many similar stories which are told us by Victor Vitensis,
+show the intense and bitter animosity of the great Vandal against all
+who refused to accept what the ecclesiastical historians call ‘the
+Arian infidelity.’ At the same time they fail to bring before us any
+well-concerted and systematic scheme of persecution, which could by
+possibility have rooted out the Catholic faith from Africa. Gaiseric was
+evidently no Diocletian, with sad thoroughness undertaking to eradicate
+a hostile faith in order to fulfil his duty to the State. Nor was he a
+Louis XIV, organising dragonnades and revoking edicts of toleration in
+order that he might keep his mistresses and yet save his soul. He was
+essentially a barbarian, though a clever one, with all that intolerance
+of opposition which is shown not by barbarians only when
+
+    ‘Dressed in a little brief authority.’
+
+He could not bear that any of those about him should dare to belong
+to any other than ‘the King’s religion,’ and he tortured, degraded,
+banished, at last sometimes even killed, in order to punish those who
+differed from him for their independence.
+
+Such was the character and such the past career of the founder of the
+great Buccaneer State. We have now to glance at the course of events
+which, in the year 455, brought him across the sea to Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: _Family relations of Valentinian III._]
+
+Valentinian III, in the year 437, when he had reached the age of
+eighteen, went on a visit of state to his cousin, Theodosius II, at
+Constantinople, and returned bringing with him that cousin’s daughter as
+a bride. She bore the name which, with slight modifications, had been
+borne by two previous generations of Imperial ladies in the palace at
+Constantinople, Eudoxia or Eudocia. Of this marriage there was no male
+issue, but two daughters were born to the Imperial pair, Eudoxia and
+Placidia.
+
+[Sidenote: _His jealousy of Aetius._]
+
+On the death of Attila (453) the thought, the base thought, began to
+insinuate itself into the mind of Valentinian that he had now less need
+of the services of the great minister, Aetius. Men called that minister
+‘the great safeguard of the Western Commonwealth and the terror of
+Attila[97].’ His praises were sung with wearisome repetition, and the
+very presence of the strenuous, care-worn warrior was an oppression and
+a rebuke to the frivolous Emperor who ‘reigned but did not govern.’
+The growing dislike, now that the wise Placidia was laid in the grave,
+could be fostered at their pleasure by the mischief-making lacqueys of
+the palace, and one of these, the eunuch Heraclius, for ever seeming
+to anticipate the Emperor’s wishes, and really making him the tool of
+his own base designs, had begun to talk of possible means of freeing
+Valentinian from the yoke of his minister and making him master in his
+own house. Hints of treachery reached the ears of Aetius, and to secure
+himself he pressed the Emperor to exchange with him solemn oaths of
+mutual faith. At the same time a scheme which had probably been for some
+time talked of, and which seemed to promise the undisturbed succession to
+the throne of a hero’s son, received its final ratification. Valentinian
+promised to give one of his daughters in marriage to Gaudentius[98], the
+son of Aetius.
+
+[Sidenote: _454. Valentinian murders Aetius._]
+
+Such was the state of affairs, a hollow crust of reconciliation and
+plighted vows over the red-hot lava of hatred and suspicion, when one
+day Aetius entered the palace and had an interview with the Emperor.
+He spoke of the covenant entered into between them: he perhaps urged
+the completion of the marriage at once, and hinted that his master was
+seeking to evade the fulfilment of his promise. Valentinian was, or
+feigned to be, enraged against his importunate petitioner. He struck
+Aetius a blow: the swords of the surrounding courtiers, we are told,
+‘cruelly finished the work.’ The last of the Romans was lying dead at the
+feet of one of the meanest of the Caesars. Along with Aetius fell one of
+his friends, bearer of a name destined to European celebrity,—Boetius,
+an ancestor of the author of the ‘Consolation of Philosophy.’
+
+Soon after the foul deed had been done Valentinian asked a Roman nobleman
+if he had done well in slaying Aetius. ‘Well done, or ill done, most
+noble Augustus, I am hardly able to decide. But I know one thing, that
+you have chopped off your right hand with your left.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Vengeance on Valentinian. 455._]
+
+The death of Aetius, which probably occurred towards the end of 454,
+remained not long unavenged. Valentinian, who with all his many vices
+does not appear to have been a coward, allowed the friends and retainers
+of the murdered man to approach him without hindrance. He supposed
+that what his flatterers told him was true, and that the deed of the
+Emperor of Rome would be accepted as if it were the decree of heaven by
+his adoring subjects. Little did he know the longing for revenge which
+filled the hearts of the barbarian guardsmen of Aetius, who, like the
+_Comitatus_ of a German chief, deemed themselves for ever disgraced
+by the unrequited murder of their lord. On the 16th of March, 455,
+Valentinian rode forth from the City to a place called ‘the Two Laurels,’
+to watch some contest (perhaps a wrestling match) which was going
+forward. While he was intent on the spectacle two henchmen of Aetius,
+named Optila and Thraustila[99]—their names reveal their barbarian
+origin—approached and ‘stabbed him with unexpected blows[100].’ The
+eunuch Heraclius, who had been his accomplice in the murder of Aetius,
+was slain at the same time.
+
+[Sidenote: _Accession of Maximus._]
+
+[Sidenote: _His marriage with Eudoxia._]
+
+[Sidenote: _455._]
+
+With the death of Valentinian the dynasty of Theodosius came to an end,
+his cousin Pulcheria, the Augusta at Constantinople, having died two
+years before (453). The person who was chosen to succeed him was Maximus,
+an elderly Senator, a man who had been twice Consul, and had filled
+various offices of the State with credit and distinction. The hopes which
+had been formed of a wise and honourable administration of the affairs
+of the Republic by the new Emperor were, however, soon disappointed.
+Maximus not only left the murder of his predecessor unavenged: he even
+seemed ostentatiously to court the society of the murderers, thus
+definitely enrolling himself as a partisan of the family of Aetius and
+an antagonist of the probably still numerous adherents of the Theodosian
+house. He carried this partisanship to such lengths as to suggest to
+the minds of his subjects that he had himself been privy to the death
+of his predecessor. The suspicion was probably unfounded, but the mere
+fact that it was widely entertained must have been fatal to the moral
+ascendency of the new Emperor. Moreover he compelled the beautiful widow
+of Valentinian, who was still truly mourning her unworthy husband, to
+accept his hand in marriage, and proposed to marry his son Palladius
+to her daughter, Placidia. If he hoped thus to consolidate his dynasty
+by a double union with the family of his predecessor, he was bitterly
+disappointed. Eudoxia was wounded in her affections by the indecent
+haste with which she had been compelled to accept this elderly and
+commonplace civil servant instead of the brilliant, if worthless, husband
+of her youth. She was wounded in her pride by a marriage, or rather by
+two marriages, deemed by her to be beneath the dignity of that great
+Theodosian house to which she belonged by a double title, and which had
+now for three quarters of a century been, in the flattering dialect of
+the Court, ‘domus divina.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Eudoxia invokes the aid of Gaiseric._]
+
+Like her sister-in-law Honoria, in her rage and despair she looked to
+the barbarian for aid. She found means to send a messenger to Gaiseric,
+inviting him to attack Rome and deliver her from shameful bondage. The
+messenger found the Vandal king in no unwilling mood. Most likely he had
+often discussed with himself the probabilities of success or failure in
+the most brilliant enterprise that ambition and avarice could suggest to
+a Teutonic warrior: and now all doubts were removed by the knowledge that
+Rome’s powers of resistance, feeble at the best, would be paralysed by
+internal dissensions. His ships were no doubt all equipped in readiness
+for his usual spring-tour of desolation: he had but to give to the
+waiting pilot the word of command, ‘for Rome.’
+
+[Sidenote: _Gaiseric sets sail for Rome, June, 455._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Flight and death of Maximus._]
+
+The Vandal fleet reached the mouth of the Tiber in the early days of
+June (455); but already, three days before their arrival, the reign of
+Maximus, which lasted only about ten or eleven weeks, had come to an
+end. The rumour of the impending invasion, fears of domestic treachery,
+the unconcealed scorn and hatred of Eudoxia, quite unnerved the elderly
+Emperor, who, after publishing a proclamation granting liberty to leave
+the City to all who desired to do so, himself claimed the permission
+which he had accorded to his subjects and stole away from the palace.
+As soon as his departure was discovered an insurrection broke out. The
+servants of the palace, who were all on Eudoxia’s side, followed and
+overtook the fugitive. According to the ghastly precedent set in the
+case of Rufinus, they tore him limb from limb, dragged the pieces of his
+body through the streets of Rome and hurled them contemptuously into
+the Tiber. Already, in the general ruin of society, the men who called
+themselves Romans were showing themselves even more barbarous than the
+barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: _Surrender of the City._]
+
+[Sidenote: _455. Plunder of Rome._]
+
+A city thus left without a ruler, and probably divided against itself,
+(the enemies and the friends of the late Theodosian dynasty regarding one
+another with hatred and fear,) could offer no effectual resistance, and
+appears to have offered no resistance at all, to the mighty Vandal. Once
+more the expedient of Papal intercession was resorted to, but this time
+with only partial success. When Pope Leo with his clergy met Gaiseric
+outside the Porta Portuensis the conqueror agreed—no doubt on condition
+that his entry should be unopposed—to spare the lives of the inhabitants,
+to set fire neither to church, palace, nor private dwelling, and to
+abstain from the use of torture for the discovery of hidden wealth.
+These conditions being observed, there was to be no limit to the Vandal
+capacities for spoliation. ‘For fourteen days,’ says an annalist[101],
+‘with secure and unhindered investigation, Rome was stripped of all her
+wealth.’ Temple and Christian church were impartially plundered. Half of
+the gilded roof of the Temple of Capitolian Jove, the Communion-plate of
+all the great basilicas, statues from forum and hippodrome and villa, the
+crown and jewelled ornaments of Theodosius and his posterity, even the
+seven-branched candlestick and the table of the shew-bread which Titus
+had brought from ruined Jerusalem, these and endless other treasures
+were borne during those fourteen days of leisurely spoliation along the
+Via Portuensis and stowed away in the capacious holds of the Vandal
+galleys[102]. The vessel which bore the statues and other treasures of
+art most unfortunately foundered on the voyage. The spoils of the Jewish
+temple reached their destination in safety, and after reposing in the
+recesses of the Vandal palace at Carthage for seventy-nine years were
+carried to Constantinople to grace the triumph of Belisarius: but the
+Roman Emperor Justinian, fearing that these sacred treasures which had
+already witnessed the sack of three great cities, Jerusalem, Rome, and
+Carthage, bringing ill fortune with them like the Ark of God to the
+cities of the Philistines, might also witness the fall of Constantinople,
+sent them back to their original home on Mount Moriah, where apparently
+they must still have been stored up when Omar, at the head of his true
+believers, stormed the Holy City.
+
+[Sidenote: _Gaiseric returns to Africa._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Captivity of Eudoxia and her daughters._]
+
+Gaiseric, having fully accomplished his purpose, not conquest but
+plunder, returned to Carthage, laying waste on his way the shores of
+Campania and ruining the cities of Capua and Nola. The Empress Eudoxia
+and her two daughters were transported to Carthage. The elder daughter,
+Eudoxia, was married to Gaiseric’s eldest son, Huneric,—a most miserable
+union, since she was a devoted Catholic and her husband a bitter Arian.
+In 472, after twenty-seven years of wedlock, she escaped from the hated
+land to Jerusalem, and there died, after a few months spent in religious
+seclusion, at the Tomb of the Saviour. The Empress Eudoxia and her other
+daughter, Placidia, were sent to Constantinople in 462, after seven
+years’ captivity, in consideration of a large ransom paid by the Emperor
+Leo, who, though no relation of the Theodosian family, felt his dignity
+wounded by the detention of the widow and daughter of an Emperor in the
+palace of the barbarian.
+
+[Sidenote: _Further fortunes of the Theodosian family._]
+
+Placidia’s husband, a senator named Olybrius, was one of the
+‘shadow-Emperors’ whose coming and going marked the last twenty years
+of the Empire of the West. In March, 472, he was proclaimed Augustus
+by Ricimer, the successor of Stilicho and Aetius in the position of
+‘powerful friend’ of the Emperors. In October of the same year he died
+of dropsy, having produced no perceptible eddy in the swift downward
+current of the fortunes of Rome. A grandson of his and Placidia’s, a
+great-grandson of Valentinian III, named also Olybrius, was Consul in
+491. His inconspicuous name is the last vestige left in history of the
+family of the great Theodosius.
+
+I have overpassed the proper limits of my subject by a few years in
+order to trace the fortunes of the Theodosian _family_. The Theodosian
+_dynasty_ ended, as we have seen, in March, 455; and that event, with the
+immediately succeeding sack of Rome by Gaiseric, is a fitting close to my
+narrative.
+
+[Sidenote: _Conclusion._]
+
+In 375, before the Huns had crossed the Dniester, or the fugitive
+Visigoths had crowded to the shore of the Danube, beseeching the
+hospitality of the Empire, it seemed as if the stately fabric reared
+by the Senate and People of Rome, which had already stood for eleven
+centuries, might stand for eleven centuries more. In 455, when the
+ships of the Vandal king were bearing away the widow and daughters of
+an Emperor, the spoils of the city and palace, and a crowd of well-born
+captives, to his robber-fortress of Carthage, the sceptre of the great
+world-conquering power was broken. Britain, Gaul, Germany, Spain,
+Africa, were lost to her dominion. Rome herself had twice surrendered
+to a barbarian conqueror, and had twice been sacked by his soldiers.
+The sacred soil of Italy had for years been trodden under foot by the
+armies of the Goth, the Hun, and the Vandal. The Empire’s reputation of
+unconquerableness had departed from her, and when Roman and barbarian
+met on the battle-field, the expectation in both armies was that the
+legions would _not_ be victorious. A long and wonderful existence yet
+lay before the New Rome by the Bosphorus, but from the Old Rome by the
+Tiber the spell of Empire had for a time departed. Yet already there were
+indications in the sky from what quarter her new day would dawn. Already
+the majestic figure of Leo betokened the uprising of a new order of men,
+the avowed successors of a fisherman of Bethsaida, who should rule over
+a wider world than the Roman Empire, and wield a more absolute authority
+than had been enjoyed by the proudest of the successors of Augustus.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] Greece.
+
+[2] Regulus.
+
+[3] ‘I appeal unto Caesar.’
+
+[4] Strictly speaking the Ulpii, Aelii, Antonini, and Annii. But
+Antoninus is the best central name for the dynasty.
+
+[5] The city of Spalato now occupies the site of the palace of
+Diocletian, which was built in the neighbourhood of Salona.
+
+[6] Valens.
+
+[7] Cod. Theod. xii. 1, 160. It is Arcadius who uses this expression.
+
+[8] Vegetius (De Re Militari ii. 5).
+
+[9] ‘Nam imperator cum Augusti nomen accepit, tanquam praesenti et
+corporali Deo fidelis est praestanda devotio, inpendendus pervigil
+famulatus.’
+
+[10] The Computation proceeds in this way. The _Notitia_ enumerates 132
+‘Legions’ of foot soldiers and 109 other bodies of infantry, ‘Numeri,’
+‘Auxilia,’ and so forth, whose precise strength we cannot ascertain: also
+91 ‘Vexillationes,’ ‘Alae,’ &c., of cavalry.
+
+    Taking the 132 Legions at 6100 men we get           805,200
+    Taking the 109 Numeri, &c. at 1000 we get           109,000
+    Taking the 91 Vexillationes at 600 (the full
+        number of a Vexillatio) we get                   54,600
+                                                        -------
+                                                        968,800
+
+[11] There is an interesting passage in the Greek historian Agathias (who
+wrote about 570) which illustrates, if it does not precisely confirm
+the view here taken. He says (Hist. v. 13): ‘The armies of the Romans
+no longer remained of the size at which they had been originally fixed
+by the earlier Emperors, but had dwindled down to a tiny remnant, by
+no means adequate to the size of the State. For whereas they ought to
+amount in the whole to 645,000 warlike men, they have been now reduced to
+little more than 150,000.’ As Agathias wrote under Justinian, after the
+greater part of the West had been lost to the Empire, he probably reduced
+his figures of ‘paper-strength’ and ‘effectives’ in proportion to the
+diminution of the Empire; and if so, he would probably have accepted for
+the year 400, when the territories of the sons of Theodosius were still
+intact, a result like that mentioned in the text.
+
+[12] Scrinia.
+
+[13] Claudian.
+
+[14] Though this word has lately obtained, chiefly through the influence
+of French writers, rather too wide currency, as the polite equivalent of
+‘mob,’ a writer on Roman affairs may with better right employ it, as it
+is derived from the politics of old Rome. In the _Comitia Centuriata_,
+the lowest class of citizens, those who were assessed on a very small
+amount of property, and who had little beside their children (_proles_)
+wherewith to serve the State, were called _proletarii_. The word seems to
+have passed out of use before the close of the Republic.
+
+[15] In this sentence and throughout these lectures I quote actual sums
+of money, without attempting to make any correction for the alteration in
+its value, that being an element extremely difficult to calculate. There
+is no doubt that the purchasing power of the equivalent of £1 sterling
+was greater then than now, how much greater it is almost impossible to
+say, I conjecture about double.
+
+[16] Perhaps the ration was proportioned to the size of the receiver’s
+family, but this we cannot say with certainty.
+
+[17] Cassiodorus, Variarum iii. 51.
+
+[18] ‘Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam: jam vero et
+provincias. Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant, cum interfecit eos
+Nero princeps.’ Hist. Nat. xviii. 6.
+
+[19] Cod. Theod. ii. 25. ‘Quis enim ferat, liberos a parentibus, a
+fratribus sorores, a viris conjuges segregari?’ The date of this law
+is not quite certain, but it probably belongs to A.D. 334. There is no
+doubt that Constantine was the author of it, and we may therefore fairly
+attribute it to Christian influences.
+
+[20] See Fustel de Coulanges, Problèmes de l’Histoire.
+
+[21] Waitz (Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte i. 30) remarks that ‘Teutonic’
+and ‘Deutsch’ have probably no connection with one another.
+
+[22] Norton, Sutton, Easton, Weston, &c.
+
+[23] Laleham, Farnham, Tottenham, &c., but more often with a genitive
+plural preceding it. Birmingham (the village of the Beormings),
+Buckingham (the village of the Bucings), and so on.
+
+[24] Derby, Danby, Whitby, &c.; Elswick, Alnwick, Chiswick, &c.
+
+[25] The _Ingenui_ of the Latin writers: the _Gemein-freie_ of modern
+Germans.
+
+[26] _Faihu-thrains_ (literally cattle-thronging) is Ulfilas’ translation
+of Μαμμωνᾶς.
+
+[27] This paragraph is an attempt to explain the following passage of
+Tacitus (Germania xxvi) which has been almost as much fought over by
+commentators as if it had been a text of Scripture:—
+
+‘Agri pro numero cultorum ab universis in vices occupantur, quos mox
+inter se secundum dignationem partiuntur. Facilitatem partiendi camporum
+spatia praestant. Arva per annos mutant; et superest ager.’
+
+I follow in some points the interpretation given by Waitz (Deutsche
+Verfassungsgeschichte i. 109-113 and 140-148), and Dahn (Geschichte der
+deutschen Urzeit i. 171-174); but on the whole the criticism of Fustel de
+Coulanges (Problèmes d’Histoire, 263-294) seems to me to penetrate most
+deeply into the author’s meaning.
+
+[28] ‘Secundum dignationem partiuntur.’
+
+[29] ‘Et superest ager.’
+
+[30] ‘Arva per annos mutant.’ Perhaps this is meant to convey a different
+meaning from ‘per annum.’
+
+[31] De Bello Gallico, iv. 1, vi. 22.
+
+[32] The strongest part of Mr. Seebohm’s book is, I think, his
+illustration of the old Teutonic land-tenure by the open fields now or
+lately existing at Hitchin. I confess I am not convinced by him that the
+open field system and ‘co-aration’ necessarily imply a servile tenure on
+the part of the cultivators.
+
+[33] De Bello Gallico iv. 1.
+
+[34] We have a word _Gá_ in English akin to the German _Gau_, but it does
+not seem to have been ever extensively used. For the reasons why _shire_
+is not precisely appropriate, see Prof. Freeman’s Essay ‘The Shire and
+the Gá.’ Have we a trace of the Gau in the names of Linlithgow and
+Glasgow?
+
+[35] Bishop Stubbs makes the ‘hundred’ answer to the _pagus_, but as
+there were 65 hundreds in Sussex alone, this seems a very small division
+to represent the great and important _pagi_ of Caesar and Tacitus.
+
+[36] Compare the ‘Turba regum diversarumque nationum ductores’ of
+Jordanes, De Reb. Get. xxxviii.
+
+[37] ‘Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt’ (Tacitus, Germania
+vii).
+
+[38] ‘Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit’
+(ibid. xvi). It seems very likely, as suggested by Seebohm (English
+Village Community, p. 339), that this describes rather the settlement of
+the chiefs than of the commonalty. This must be stated, however, as a
+mere conjecture, as there is nothing in the language of Tacitus on which
+to found it.
+
+[39] The story of Clovis and the vase of Soissons, though almost worn
+threadbare by frequent repetition, may be quoted as an illustration of
+the nature of the power of a German king, strictly limited in peace, but
+tending to become absolute in war. Clovis wished to gratify the Bishop
+of Rheims by restoring to him a vase which the spoilers had taken from
+his church. When the army were all mustered at Soissons with the heap
+of plunder before them, he accordingly asked that this vase might be
+allotted to him over and above his regular share of the spoil. ‘Glorious
+king,’ said the loyal soldiers, ‘we and all that we have are thine,
+neither can any one resist thy power.’ But one of the warriors—‘envious
+and fickle,’ says the historian, perhaps in his heart resenting the
+adulation of his comrades—lifted up his battle-axe and smote upon the
+vase, saying, ‘Nothing shalt thou carry away from hence except what a
+fair lot give thee.’ The vase was apparently defaced, not broken, and
+the king concealing his annoyance handed it to the bishop’s messenger.
+At the year’s end, when all the warriors were assembled in the Campus
+Martius to show the brightness of their arms, the king, going the round
+of his troops, came to the striker of the vase. ‘No one,’ said he, ‘keeps
+his arms in such a dirty state as thou dost: neither thy spear, nor thy
+shield, nor thy battle-axe is fit to be seen,’ and therewith he wrested
+the battle-axe from his hand and threw it to the ground. As the man
+stooped to pick it up the king raised his hand on high, and drove his own
+battle-axe deep into the warrior’s skull, shouting, ‘Thus at Soissons
+didst thou do to that vase.’ Thereupon he ordered all the other warriors
+to file off from the field, their hearts being filled with a salutary
+dread of his power.
+
+[40] In this connection it is interesting to note that an inscription
+has recently been discovered at the Roman Camp of Borcovicus in
+Northumberland, which commences ‘Deo Marti Thincso.’ The persons who thus
+record the dedication of their altar to the god Mars Thincsus are said to
+be ‘Germani Cives Tuihanti.’ Dr. Hübner, one of the greatest authorities
+on Roman epigraphy, believes that ‘Mars Thincsus’ is the Teutonic god
+Tiu, and that his epithet means that the national _Thing_ or Council was
+held under his guardianship. (See Archaeologia Aeliana, x. 154-159.)
+
+[41] ‘Eliguntur in iisdem conciliis et principes, qui jura per pagos
+vicosque reddunt’ (Tacitus, Germania xii).
+
+[42] Thiudans is the Gothic word for ‘King.’
+
+[43] In 552, see Jordanes li.
+
+[44] Socrates, iv. 33.
+
+[45] Gothic Irregulars.
+
+[46] Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis xxiv.
+
+[47] ‘Vallis Greuthungorum’ (Ammianus xxxi. 3). Greuthungi seems to have
+been another name for the Ostrogoths.
+
+[48] Concord Auggg. (The number of repetitions of the letter g indicates
+the number of Emperors.)
+
+[49] Jordanes xxvi: ‘Illico in ducum Lupicini et Maximi armantur
+_occisionem_.’
+
+[50] Ammianus.
+
+[51] Cura Palati.
+
+[52] xxiii. 4.
+
+[53] Onager.
+
+[54] Aries.
+
+[55] Helepolis.
+
+[56] ‘Trans Taurum.’ I suppose this is equivalent to ‘per Orientem.’
+
+[57] Ammianus, ‘Efficacia Julii magistri militiae trans Taurum enituit
+salutaris et velox.’ Zosimus, Ἰούλιος τοιῷδέ τινι τρόπῳ τὸν ἐπηρτημένον
+ταῖς πόλεσιν ἀποσείεται κίνδυνον.
+
+[58] Jordanes xxviii.
+
+[59] Idatius, Descriptio Consulum, makes the entry of Athanaric into
+Constantinople 11 Jan. and his death 25 Jan. 381.
+
+[60] ‘Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.’
+
+[61] ‘Vir strenuus et probus atque Augusto dignus, nisi contra sacramenti
+fidem per tyrannidem emersisset.’ (Historia Miscella xi. 16.)
+
+[62] xxxi. 10, 18 and 19.
+
+[63] Historia Miscella xii. 16.
+
+[64] Magnentius and Valentinian I.
+
+[65] Combined from Zosimus and Philostorgius. Possibly the two stories
+relate to different altercations.
+
+[66] Jordanes xxviii.
+
+[67] Zosimus v. 6.
+
+[68] Claudian, De Bello Getico 565-7.
+
+[69]
+
+    ‘Rumpe omnes, Alarice, moras. Hoc impiger anno
+    Alpibus Italiae ruptis, _penetrabis ad Urbem_.’
+
+                                         Claudian, De Bello Getico, 545-6.
+
+[70] Partly founded, however, on the experience of Theodoric in Thrace as
+described by Malchus. (See Italy and her Invaders, Book IV. cap. 3.)
+
+[71] ‘Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis.’
+
+[72] He was Praefectus Praetorio under Attalus, 409.
+
+[73] Zosimus v. 33.
+
+[74] Or ‘your souls.’
+
+[75] Zosimus v. 38.
+
+[76] ‘Consanguineo,’ Jord. xxx.
+
+[77] Morning-gift.
+
+[78] In several points of his military career, Aetius seems to me a not
+unworthy precursor of Belisarius.
+
+[79] With a short interval of exile in Hunland, 433.
+
+[80] Jordanes xxxv.
+
+[81] ‘Bellorum quidem amator, sed ipse manu temperans.’
+
+[82] Suidas.
+
+[83] ‘Turba regum’ (Jordanes xxxviii). Compare the story of Talma playing
+to a _parquet_ of Kings in the days of Napoleon.
+
+[84] ‘Bellum atrox, multiplex, immane, pertinax.’ Jordanes xl.
+
+[85] Jordanes.
+
+[86] By Procopius, de Bello Vandal. i. 2.
+
+[87] As suggested by Papencordt, Geschichte der Vandalen, p. 339.
+
+[88] Idatius. ‘Alani et Wandali et Suevi Hispanias ingressi: alii quarto
+Kalendas [28 Sept.], alii tertio Idus Octobris [13 Oct.] memorant die,
+tertiâ feriâ.’ Tillemont points out that the 28th September in that year
+fell on a Tuesday, but the 13th October on a Wednesday. Very likely
+the fifteen days’ difference between the two calculations denotes the
+interval between the passage of the van and the rear of the invading host.
+
+[89] Often called Genseric by modern historians, but there is no doubt
+that Gaiseric is the more correct form of the name, and it is the one now
+generally adopted by German scholars.
+
+[90] Procopius.
+
+[91] Professor Freeman, in the English Historical Review for July, 1887.
+
+[92] The date commonly given is 429, but there are authorities also for
+427 and 428, and upon the whole this last date appears the most probable.
+
+[93] Procopius asserts this.
+
+[94] This character is chiefly taken from Jordanes, cap. 33.
+
+[95] Procopius.
+
+[96] Idatius mentions this report: ‘Gaisericus qui, ut aliquorum relatio
+habet, effectus apostata de fide Catholicâ, in Arianam dictus est
+transisse perfidiam.’
+
+[97] Marcellinus Comes, s. a. 454.
+
+[98] Or possibly Carpilio. We are not quite sure of the name.
+
+[99] Or Accila and Trasila (Continuator Prosperi). Trasila is here said
+to have been a son-in-law of Aetius.
+
+[100] ‘Insperatis et inopinatis ictibus confoderunt.’
+
+[101] Prosper.
+
+[102] We are not distinctly told that the fleet of Gaiseric lay at
+anchor off Portus, but this is rather more probable than that they were
+at Ostia. It is quite possible, however, that the fleet may have been
+divided between the two ports when it was plain that there was to be no
+opposition. This would enable the Vandals to load much more cargo during
+the fourteen days, which on any hypothesis seems rather a short time for
+the immense amount of business transacted in them.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+_(Modern place-names in Italics._)
+
+
+  A.
+
+  Ad Salices (the Willows), battle of, 94.
+
+  Aemona (_Laybach_), 127, 131, 153.
+
+  Aequitius, Superintendent of the Palace, 100.
+
+  Aetius, 178, 191-210, 225, 226.
+
+  Agathias, 40 _n._, 41 _n._
+
+  Agentes in Rebus, 42.
+
+  Alamanni, 25, 74.
+
+  Alani, 124, 152, 182, 196, 206.
+
+  Alaric, 131, 137-168.
+
+  Alatheus the Ostrogoth, 96, 97.
+
+  Alavivus, 87, 91.
+
+  Ambrose, St., 122.
+
+  Ammianus Marcellinus, 45, 47, 49, 102, 124.
+
+  Angles, 183.
+
+  Anianus, Bishop of Paris, 194.
+
+  Antioch, 23, 118-120.
+
+  Aquileia—besieged by Attila, 198.
+
+  Arbogast, 110, 128-132.
+
+  Arcadius, 36 _n._, 117, 134, 141, 142, 153, 155.
+
+  Ardaburius the Alan, 177.
+
+  Ardaric, King of the Gepidae, 196.
+
+  Arian controversy, 31.
+
+  Ariminum, plains of, 164, 172.
+
+  Aristocracy of Rome, not theoretically hereditary, 8;
+    manners of, in fourth century, 47-48.
+
+  Armogast, Count, 224.
+
+  Army, Roman, size of, in the fourth century, 39-40.
+
+  Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica, 109.
+
+  Aspar the Alan, 177.
+
+  Ataulfus, 172-175, 208.
+
+  Athanaric (Judge of the Visigoths), 79, 86, 111, 112.
+
+  Attalus, 162-164, 174.
+
+  Attila, King of the Huns, 180-203.
+
+  Augustine, St., 216.
+
+  Augustus, work of, 14.
+
+
+  B.
+
+  Bacurius, 131.
+
+  Baltic, the, 183, 184.
+
+  Barbaricum, 76, 79.
+
+  Barritus, the, 94.
+
+  Batvin (Gothic martyr), 79.
+
+  Bauto, the Frank, 110, 128, 142.
+
+  Bleda, King of the Huns, 180.
+
+  Bonifacius, Governor of Africa, 179, 209-214.
+
+  Bora, a fierce wind, 131.
+
+  Botheric, 121.
+
+  Bretons, the, 196.
+
+  Britain, invasion of by Angles and Saxons, 183-184.
+
+  Britain, Roman roads in, 2-4.
+
+  Brutus, 12.
+
+  Burgundians, the, 180, 196.
+
+  Busentus, the, Alaric buried in, 168.
+
+
+  C.
+
+  Caesar, work of, 13, 14;
+    on the Germans, 55.
+
+  Caesarius, 119, 120.
+
+  Camps, 20.
+
+  Carthage, Vandals at, 215, 218-220.
+
+  Cassiodorus, 49.
+
+  Castinus, Magister Militum, 177, 209.
+
+  Cauca (in Spain, the birthplace of Theodosius), 105.
+
+  Celtic nationality, 73.
+
+  Censorship, 9.
+
+  Châlons, battle of, so called, 195.
+
+  China, 183.
+
+  Christian legislation of Constantine, 30, 51 _n._
+
+  Christianity, relation of Diocletian to, 28.
+
+  — relation of Constantine to, 29.
+
+  — relation of Constantine’s successors to, 31.
+
+  Chrysopolis, battle of, 27.
+
+  Chrysostom, St. John, 120.
+
+  Clarissimi, class of, 43.
+
+  Claudian, 144.
+
+  Clovis and the vase of Soissons, 69 _n._
+
+  Coinage, Imperial, of 1st and 3rd centuries contrasted, 19.
+
+  Coloni, condition of, 51-52.
+
+  Comes Privatarum Rerum, 42.
+
+  — Sacrarum Largitionum, 42.
+
+  Consistory, Imperial, 37.
+
+  Constantine the Great, 24, 31, 51 _n._
+
+  — the Usurper, 152, 163, 207.
+
+  Constantinople, foundation of, 26;
+    siege of, 101.
+
+  Constantius I, 24-25.
+
+  — husband of Placidia, 176.
+
+  — secretary to Attila, 184, 185.
+
+  Crispus, son of Constantine, 27.
+
+  Crocus, king of the Alamanni, 25.
+
+  Curiales, 52-53.
+
+
+  D.
+
+  Dahn, F., 60 _n._
+
+  Damasus, Pope, 109.
+
+  Decurio, 52.
+
+  Diocletian, his work of restoration, 21-25;
+    his death, 26;
+    his relation to Christianity, 28.
+
+
+  E.
+
+  East, Prefecture of, 23.
+
+  Edeco the Hun, 186.
+
+  Ellebichus, 119, 120.
+
+  Emperor, Roman, appearance of, 34, 35;
+    titles of, 36.
+
+  Ernak, son of Attila, 190, 203.
+
+  Eucherius, 155, 158.
+
+  Eudoxia, wife of Arcadius, 142.
+
+  — wife of Valentinian III, 225, 228, 232.
+
+  — daughter of Valentinian III, 225;
+    married to Huneric, 232.
+
+  Eugenius, Emperor, 130, 131.
+
+  Eutropius, 142.
+
+  Extortion of Roman Governors, 11, 17.
+
+
+  F.
+
+  Fiesole, 149.
+
+  Firmus, 106.
+
+  Flaccilla, 126.
+
+  Flavianus, Bishop of Antioch, 118-120.
+
+  Food supply of Roman citizens, 48, 49.
+
+  Franks, 74, 152, 179, 196.
+
+  Frederic (Gothic martyr), 79.
+
+  Freeman, E. A., 65 _n._, 210 _n._
+
+  Frigidus, battle of, 131.
+
+  Fritigern, Visigothic chieftain, 79, 86, 87, 91, 92, 96, 97, 111.
+
+
+  G.
+
+  Gainas the Goth, 131, 140, 141.
+
+  Gaiseric, King of the Vandals, 192, 209-234.
+
+  Galerius, colleague of Diocletian, 24.
+
+  Galla, wife of Theodosius, 126, 130.
+
+  Galla Placidia (see Placidia).
+
+  Games of the circus, 49.
+
+  Gau (= pagus), 65.
+
+  Gaudentius, father of Aetius, 178.
+
+  — son of Aetius, 226.
+
+  Gauls, prefecture of the, 22, 23.
+
+  Gelimer, King of the Vandals, 221.
+
+  Geougen, the, 183.
+
+  Gepidae, 182, 195, 202.
+
+  Germania of Tacitus, 55.
+
+  German kingship, 67-72.
+
+  — popular assemblies, 70-72.
+
+  Germans, condition of, 54-72.
+
+  Gerontius, 207.
+
+  Godigisclus, King of the Vandals, 206.
+
+  ‘Gothic Architecture,’ 75;
+    Gothic Christianity, 78;
+    Gothic language, 76.
+
+  Goths, 75. See Visigoths, Ostrogoths.
+
+  Gratian, 91, 95, 105, 110, 111, 123-125.
+
+  Greuthungi (= Ostrogoths?), 86 _n._
+
+  Gunderic, King of the Vandals, 208, 209.
+
+  Gunthamund, King of the Vandals, 221.
+
+
+  H.
+
+  Hadrianople, battle of (323), 27.
+
+  — — (378), 96, 100.
+
+  Helena, mother of Constantine, 24.
+
+  Heraclian, 163, 167.
+
+  Heraclius the Eunuch, 226, 228.
+
+  Hermanric, King of the Ostrogoths, 76, 85.
+
+  Heruli, 182, 195, 202.
+
+  Hilderic, King of the Vandals, 221.
+
+  Hippo, siege of, 214, 216.
+
+  Hispalis (_Seville_) taken by Vandals, 209.
+
+  Honoria, 185, 192.
+
+  Honorius, 134, 146, 152-157, 161-164, 166, 176.
+
+  Huneric, 217.
+
+  Huns, 180, 193;
+    description of, by Jordanes, 81, 83;
+    ethnological character of, 84;
+    enter Europe (374), 85.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  Ildico, wife of Attila, 202.
+
+  Illustres, class of, 37.
+
+  Illyricum, Prefecture of, 23.
+
+  Ingenuus, 174.
+
+  Italy, Prefecture of, 23.
+
+
+  J.
+
+  Jerome, St., 45, 47, 174.
+
+  Joannes, Emperor, 177.
+
+  Jordanes (Gothic historian, wrote cir. 550), 81-83.
+
+  Jovian, 90.
+
+  Jovius, Praetorian prefect, 161-162.
+
+  ‘Judges’ of the Visigoths, 76.
+
+  Julian ‘the Apostate,’ 90.
+
+  Julius, master of the soldiery, 104.
+
+  Justina, 91, 126, 128.
+
+  Jutes, the, 183.
+
+
+  K.
+
+  Kingship and national unity, 67.
+
+
+  L.
+
+  Lampadius, 153.
+
+  Lancearii, 98.
+
+  Land—settlement of the Germans, 60-62.
+
+  Latifundia, 50, 51.
+
+  Leo I, Pope, 200, 230.
+
+  Leo, Emperor, 232.
+
+  Libanius, 120.
+
+  Licinius, his struggle with Constantine, 27.
+
+  Lupicinus, Count of Thrace, 88-93.
+
+  Lupus, St., Bishop of Troyes, 195, 198.
+
+
+  M.
+
+  Magister Militiae, 39-40.
+
+  Magister Officiorum, 42.
+
+  Marcian, Emperor, 191.
+
+  Marcianople (_Shumla_), 92-93.
+
+  Marcomanni, 74.
+
+  Maria, wife of Honorius, 154.
+
+  Mattiarii, 98.
+
+  Maxentius, Emperor, 26.
+
+  Maximian, Emperor, 24, 26.
+
+  Maximin Daza, Emperor, 24.
+
+  — ambassador to Attila, 186.
+
+  Maximus (a wealthy citizen of Rome), 47.
+
+  Maximus, Duke of Moesia, 88-93.
+
+  — Magnus Clemens, usurper, 123, 125, 126.
+
+  Maximus, Emperor, 207, 228, 229.
+
+  _Milan_ (Mediolanum), 23.
+
+  Money, purchasing power of, 46 _n._
+
+
+  N.
+
+  Nicaea, Council of, 29-30.
+
+  Nicomedia in Bithynia, 24-25.
+
+  Nicopolis, city of, owned by Paula, 47.
+
+  Notitia Utriusque Imperii, 38, 39, 40 _n._, 41, 42, 44.
+
+
+  O.
+
+  Oath taken by soldiers to Emperor, 36.
+
+  Offices, sale of, under the Empire, 43.
+
+  Official hierarchy of the Empire, 37-44.
+
+  Olybrius, ‘Shadow-Emperor,’ 232.
+
+  Olympius, 155-157, 159.
+
+  Onegesius the Hun, 187, 188.
+
+  Optila, henchman of Aetius, 227.
+
+  Orleans, siege of, 194.
+
+  Orosius, 172.
+
+  Ostrogoths, 75, 76, 99, 182, 195, 202.
+
+
+  P.
+
+  Pagus, German, 65-66.
+
+  Paris, 194.
+
+  Paula, piety and wealth of, 47.
+
+  Persian Empire, relation of, to Roman, 6-7.
+
+  Placidia, daughter of Theodosius, 130, 171, 174-180, 184, 191.
+
+  Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III, 225, 228, 232.
+
+  Pliny, 50.
+
+  Pollentia, battle of, 146.
+
+  Possidius, Bishop of Calama, 216.
+
+  Praefectus Annonae, 49.
+
+  — Praetorio, office of, 38, 39.
+
+  Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, 41.
+
+  Prefectures, the four great, 22-3.
+
+  Priscus, ambassador to Attila, 186, 189.
+
+  Probus, wealth of, 46.
+
+  Procopius, 166, 210.
+
+  Proculus, 136.
+
+  Proletariate, 46 _n._
+
+  Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II, 191, 228.
+
+
+  Q.
+
+  Quaestor, 42.
+
+
+  R.
+
+  Radagaisus, 145, 146, 148, 149.
+
+  Ravenna, Honorius at, 146.
+
+  Richomer, Count of the Domestics, 97.
+
+  Ricimer, 232.
+
+  Roman Empire, boundaries of, 1-7.
+
+  Romanus, 106.
+
+  Rome, sieges of, 159;
+    entered by Alaric, 164;
+    plunder of, by the Vandals, 231.
+
+  Rufinus, Praetorian Prefect, 135-142.
+
+
+  S.
+
+  Salarian Gate, Alaric enters Rome through, 164.
+
+  Sallust, palace of, burned, 165.
+
+  Sangiban, King of the Alani, 196.
+
+  Saphrax, Ostrogothic chief, 96, 97.
+
+  Sarmatians, 73, 74.
+
+  Sarus the Goth, 149, 157, 164.
+
+  Saulus the Alan, 131, 147.
+
+  Saxons, the, 183, 196.
+
+  Sebastian, General, 96, 100.
+
+  — son-in-law of Bonifacius, 224.
+
+  Seebohm, F., 62, 68 _n._
+
+  Senate of Rome, 7-9;
+    behaviour of Emperors to, 15-16.
+
+  Serena, 136, 153, 160.
+
+  Severus, 24.
+
+  Siege artillery, Roman, 102.
+
+  Silentiarii, 33.
+
+  Silvanus the Goldsmith, 185.
+
+  Singeric, 175.
+
+  Sirmium, 23-95.
+
+  — vases of, 184, 185, 192.
+
+  Slaves, condition of, 50, 51.
+
+  Slavonic nationality, 73.
+
+  _Spalato_ (near Salona), 27 _n._
+
+  Spectabiles, class of, 38.
+
+  Stilicho, 135-158.
+
+  Stubbs, Bishop, 65 _n._
+
+  Suevi, 182, 206.
+
+  Symmachus, wealth of, 46.
+
+
+  T.
+
+  Tacitus, Germania of, 55, 60-62, 68, 71.
+
+  Tatianus, 136.
+
+  Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, 192-3.
+
+  Theodosius the Elder, 106.
+
+  — the Great, 105, 106-133, 139.
+
+  — II, son of Arcadius, 155, 177, 186, 191.
+
+  — son of Ataulfus and Placidia, 175.
+
+  Thermantia, wife of Honorius, 154, 158.
+
+  Thessalonica, 121, 126.
+
+  Thincsus, epithet of German Mars, 70 _n._
+
+  Thing, meeting of the Folk, 70.
+
+  Thiudans (= king in Gothic), 72.
+
+  Thorismund the Visigoth, 196, 197.
+
+  Thrasamund, King of the Vandals, 221.
+
+  Thraustila, henchman of Aetius, 227.
+
+  Ticinum (_Pavia_), 156.
+
+  Trajan, General-in-Chief, 100.
+
+  Tribunician power, 10.
+
+  _Trier_ (Augusta Trevirorum), 23.
+
+
+  U.
+
+  Uldin the Hun, 149.
+
+  Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths, 77, 78, 110.
+
+
+  V.
+
+  Valens, Emperor, 87-98.
+
+  Valentinian I, 90, 91.
+
+  — II, 91, 125-129.
+
+  — III, 177, 184, 191, 200, 225-7.
+
+  Valerian, Count of Imperial Stables, 100.
+
+  Vandals, the, 204-232.
+
+  Venice, foundation of, 199.
+
+  Victor, son of usurper Maximus, 128.
+
+  Victor Vitensis, 224.
+
+  Village settlements of the Germans, 57, 58.
+
+  Visigoths, 75, 87-99, 179.
+
+  Völker-wanderung, the, 215.
+
+
+  W.
+
+  Waitz, G., 60 _n._
+
+  Walamir, King of the Ostrogoths, 196.
+
+  Walia, King of the Visigoths, 176.
+
+  Wealthy Romans, fortunes of, 46.
+
+
+  Y.
+
+  _York_ (Eboracum), 25-26.
+
+
+  Z.
+
+  Zercon, the Moor, 190.
+
+  Zosimus, 133.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE ROMAN EMPIRE in the time of Valentinian I. A.D.
+364-375]
+
+[Illustration: EUROPE IN THE YEAR 451]
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+
+_Italy and her Invaders._
+
+ILLUSTRATED WITH PLATES AND MAPS.
+
+Vols. I-IV, A.D. 376-553.
+
+8_vo._ 3_l._ 8_s._
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78826 ***
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+
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78826 ***</div>
+
+<main>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">DYNASTY OF THEODOSIUS</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>HODGKIN</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="gothic">London</span><br>
+HENRY FROWDE</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65" id="pm" style="max-width: 10.9375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/pm.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Oxford University Press Warehouse<br>
+Amen Corner, E.C.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger"><span class="smaller">THE</span><br>
+DYNASTY OF THEODOSIUS<br>
+<span class="smaller">OR</span><br>
+<span class="gothic">Eighty Years’ Struggle with the Barbarians</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED TO<br>
+THE DURHAM LADIES’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br>
+THOMAS HODGKIN<br>
+<span class="smaller"><i>Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford and Durham</i><br>
+AUTHOR OF ‘ITALY AND HER INVADERS’</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="gothic">Oxford</span><br>
+AT THE CLARENDON PRESS<br>
+<span class="smaller">M.DCCC.LXXXIX</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<p class="dedication"><span class="gothic">Dedicated</span><br>
+<span class="smaller">TO</span><br>
+MY WIFE AND CHILDREN.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>This little book owes its existence to an invitation
+addressed to me by the Durham Ladies’ Educational
+Association to deliver to them a short course of historical
+lectures. Being allowed to choose my own
+subject, I naturally chose that with which I was most
+familiar, the epoch of the fall of the Western Empire:
+but in order to prevent my very familiarity with that
+period from leading me into diffuseness, I took the
+precaution of writing the lectures, and thus, I believe,
+was preserved from in any case over-passing the
+prescribed limit of an hour and a quarter.</p>
+
+<p>When my course was completed, I found that I
+had described in brief outline so many of the leading
+events recorded in the first two volumes of my book,
+<i>Italy and her Invaders</i>, that it seemed worth while
+to offer the result of my labours to those who might
+not care to peruse the larger work. In order to give
+a little more completeness to the book, I added a
+lecture (the Second) on the political and social condition
+of the Romans and barbarians, which was not
+included in the original course.</p>
+
+<p>It will easily be understood that it is only by the
+rejection of many minor details that it is possible to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>reduce the picture of eighty eventful years within
+the limits of a compendium like the present. For
+most of these details, and for all discussion of the
+authorities on which the history of the period rests,
+I must refer to my larger work. Occasionally,
+however, I have touched upon some points not
+thoroughly discussed in <i>Italy and her Invaders</i>, and
+when I have done so, I have stated my authority in
+the notes.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<nav>
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_I">LECTURE I.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">The Roman Empire.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Limits of the Empire</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_1">1-7</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Its political organisation—</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Senate</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_7">7-9</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The People</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_9">9-13</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Emperor</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_13">13-17</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Periods of Imperial History—</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td>The Julian and Flavian dynasties</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td>The Antonine</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td>The Age of Anarchy</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_18">18-20</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td>Diocletian: the Age of Restoration</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_21">21-24</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td>Constantine the Great</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_25">25-28</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td>Christianity and the Empire</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_28">28-32</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_II">LECTURE II.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">The Roman and the Teuton.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">I. The Roman—</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Emperor</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_33">33-37</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The official hierarchy</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_37">37-44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Social condition of the Empire</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_44">44-48</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">‘Panem et Circenses’</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Slave</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Colonus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Curialis</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_52">52</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">II. The Teuton—</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Economic condition of the Germans</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_55">55-60</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">German land-system</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_60">60-62</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Relation of the Village-community to the State</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_62">62-65</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Pagus or Gau</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Kingship and national unity</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_67">67-70</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Folc-gemot</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_70">70-71</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Election of the King</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_III">LECTURE III.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">The Coming of the Huns.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">German ethnology</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Goths</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Ulfilas</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_77">77-79</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Athanaric and Fritigern</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_79">79-80</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Irruption of the Huns</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_80">80-83</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Visigoths seek an asylum in the Empire</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_86">86-87</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Visigoths cross the Danube</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Roman Emperors: Valentinian, Valens, Gratian</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_90">90-91</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The banquet at Marcianople</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_91">91-93</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Gothic War: battle of Ad Salices</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Battle of Hadrianople</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_96">96-99</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_IV">LECTURE IV.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">Theodosius.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Goths besiege Constantinople</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Failures of the Goths as besiegers</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The massacre of the Gothic boy-hostages</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Parentage of Theodosius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Theodosius associated in the Empire</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Orthodoxy of Theodosius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_108">108-110</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Athanaric at Constantinople</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Goths become Foederati</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_113">113-117</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Insurrection of Antioch</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_117">117-120</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Insurrection of Thessalonica</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_120">120-122</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Usurpation of Maximus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_123">123-126</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">His defeat and death</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Eugenius and Arbogast</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_128">128-130</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Battle of the Frigidus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Death of Theodosius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">His character</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_V">LECTURE V.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">Alaric.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The sons of Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Their ministers, Rufinus and Stilicho</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_135">135-137</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric chosen King of the Visigoths</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric invades Greece</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Stilicho forbidden to defend it</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Murder of Rufinus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_141">141-142</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Second campaign of Stilicho against Alaric</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric as Roman governor of Illyricum</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric’s first invasion of Italy</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_145">145-147</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Invasion by Radagaisus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_148">148-151</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Revolt of Constantine in Britain</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Negotiations between Stilicho and Alaric</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Death of Arcadius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Mutiny at Ticinum. Stilicho slain</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_156">156-158</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric’s first siege of Rome</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_159">159-161</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric’s second siege of Rome</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Attalus Emperor</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_162">162-164</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Alaric’s third siege and capture of Rome</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_164">164-166</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Death of Alaric</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_VI">LECTURE VI.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">Placidia: Attila.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Placidia—</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Historical perspective</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Early life of Placidia: her captivity</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Ataulfus, successor of Alaric</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">His marriage with Placidia</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Death of Ataulfus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Second marriage, widowhood, and exile of Placidia</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Death of Honorius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Rise and fall of Joannes. Valentinian III, Emperor</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Regency of Placidia</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Aetius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_179">179</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Attila—</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Accession of Attila: his character and appearance</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_180">180-182</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Extent of his Empire</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_182">182-184</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">His Embassies to Constantinople</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The vases of Sirmium</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Honoria’s ring</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Description by Priscus of Attila’s palace</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2"><span class="ditto">”</span> <span class="ditto">”</span> the banquet</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_187">187-190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Deaths of Placidia and Theodosius II</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Marcian and Pulcheria reign</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Attila prepares for war with the West</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Alliance between the Empire and the Visigoths</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_192">192-193</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Attila’s invasion of Gaul</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Siege of Orleans</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Battle of Châlons (so called)</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_195">195-197</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Attila’s retreat</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Attila invades Italy</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Capture of Aquileia</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The founders of Venice</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Attila at Milan</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Embassy of Pope Leo</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">Return and death of Attila</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="sub" colspan="2">The Hunnish power broken</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#LECTURE_VII">LECTURE VII.</a><br>
+    <span class="smcap">Gaiseric.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Early history of the Vandals</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Vandals enter Gaul</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_205">205-207</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">They cross the Pyrenees and enter Spain</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Death of Gunderic: accession of Gaiseric</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Bonifacius invites the Vandals to enter Africa</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_209">209-211</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">The Vandals transported to Africa</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Bonifacius repents and returns to Ravenna</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Siege of Hippo</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Capture of Carthage</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Appearance, character, and career of Gaiseric</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_218">218-220</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Vandal land-settlement</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Law of succession to the throne</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Persecution of the Catholics</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_221">221-225</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Valentinian murders Aetius</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Death of Valentinian III. Accession of Maximus</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Gaiseric’s Expedition to Rome. Plunder of the City</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_229">229-232</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Captivity of the widow and daughters of Valentinian</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Further fortunes of the Theodosian family</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2">Conclusion</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+</nav>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="tree1" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/tree1.jpg" alt="FAMILY OF VALENTINIAN.
+  [Emperors of the East are printed in <i>Italic</i> capitals.]">
+</figure>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="tree2" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/tree2.jpg" alt="FAMILY OF THEODOSIUS.
+  [Emperors of the East are printed in <i>Italic</i> capitals.]">
+</figure>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="ERRATA">ERRATA.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Page</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a>,</td>
+    <td>line 5 from bottom, <i>for</i> 523 <i>read</i> 323</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="ditto2">”</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_91">91</a>,</td>
+    <td><span class="ditto2">”</span> 16, <i>for</i> get <i>read</i> yet</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p>Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected, although the
+first one was printed correctly in the first place and didn’t need
+to be listed here.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="shield" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/shield.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p class="p1"><b>Shield of Theodosius</b><br>(<i>SILVER</i>)</p>
+    <p class="p1"><span class="smcap">Found near Merida in 1847, now in
+    the Museum of the Royal Historical Academy at Madrid.</span></p>
+    <p class="p1">(<i>Copied from A. Delgado’s ‘Memoria historico-critica
+    sobre el gran disco di Teodosio,’ Madrid, 1849.</i>)</p>
+    <p class="p2">Theodosius, seated on the central throne, receives from
+    a nobleman of ‘illustrious’ rank an address, perhaps congratulating him
+    on the  <i>decennalia</i> of Arcadius (393). Arcadius is seated on his right,
+    Honorius on his left, each attended by two <i>protectores</i> (guardsmen).
+    In the lower part of the shield is the recumbent figure of Hispania,
+    surrounded by emblems of prosperity. Above, ‘D(ominus) N(oster)
+    Theodosius Perpet(uus) Aug(ustus) ob diem felicissimum X.’</p>
+    <p class="p1"><i>Hodgkin’s Theodosius.</i>]
+    <span class="spacer">[<i>Clarendon Press.</i></span></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<h1>THE DYNASTY OF THEODOSIUS.</h1>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_I">LECTURE I.<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Roman Empire.</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>In Longfellow’s Golden Legend the following
+question is asked:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent20">‘Say to me</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">What the great Voices Four may be</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">That quite across the world do flee</div>
+      <div class="verse indent6">And are not heard by men?’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and this answer given:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘The Voice of the Sun in heaven’s dome,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The Voice of the murmuring of Rome,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The Voice of a Soul that goeth home,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent6">And the Angel of the Rain.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>‘The voice of the murmuring of Rome.’ That
+was indeed a mighty voice; how all-powerful, how
+nearly equivalent to the voice of the whole civilised
+human race, is more vividly impressed upon us by
+every year of deeper study of the history of the
+world fifteen centuries ago.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Extent of the Roman Empire.</i></div>
+
+<p>Let us try by a very rapid summary to indicate
+the meaning which the words ‘Imperium Romanum’
+conveyed to him who heard them in the days
+when the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was still
+standing and still thronged with earnest worshippers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>North Britain.</i></div>
+
+<p>Let us go forth from this city which clusters on
+its seven hills around the Tomb of St. Cuthbert.
+Those hills are untrodden forest or undistinguished
+pasture-ground, and all the glory of architecture and
+all the wealth of sacred associations which will one
+day crown them are unknown, for we are now in the
+second century after Christ, and Durham is neither
+<i>castra</i> nor <i>mansio</i> nor <i>mutatio</i> in the map of Roman
+Britain. But if we go a few miles up the Wear,
+near to that place in ‘the land of Oaks,’ where the
+Bishop of Durham will one day build his castle, we
+shall find there, upon a high promontory of table-land
+overlooking the stream, the spacious camp of
+Vinovia with its baths and its hypocausts, doubtless
+also with its temple and its magazines. Here we
+strike a great Roman road. Follow that road northwards
+over the hills, and you will come to the camp
+of Lanchester on the Browney. Another stretch
+over wild moorlands, and we reach Ebchester, in the
+pleasant valley of the Derwent. Another, and we
+strike the Tyne at Corstopitum (Corbridge). And so
+on by more camps and stations than I need weary
+you with the names of, till we reach the great camp,
+or rather series of camps, which surround the high
+altar-like hill of Birrenswark in Dumfriesshire, overlooking
+the sandy Solway. Yet still the Roman road
+is running northwards, till at last it reaches the Wall
+of Antoninus, somewhere near the Frith of Clyde.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Midland and Southern Britain.</i></div>
+
+<p>Southwards the same road pursues its course, uncompromising
+and undeviating, over the great ridge
+of hills which separates you from the Tees. Across
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>the Swale at Cataractonium it leads us to Isurium,
+which will one day be represented by the pleasant
+old-fashioned village of Boroughbridge, and where
+we see for the first time those pictured floors, the
+tesselated pavements which are so abundant in
+Southern Britain and in Gaul. Then it takes us to
+Eboracum, the great Roman city of the North, the
+home of the Sixth Legion, the place where the aged
+Severus will lay down the purple at the bidding of
+Death, and where the young Constantine will assume
+it at the bidding of the soldiery. Thence
+across the country south-westwards, over those hills
+and dales of Yorkshire and Lancashire, which are
+now among the poorest and most solitary, as they
+will one day be among the richest and the most thickly
+populated portions of the island of the Britons. So
+we reach Deva, or Chester on the Dee, where the
+Twentieth Legion have built their stately city, with
+its temples, its baths, and its spacious praetorium
+for their commanding officer. And so from thence,
+through Cheshire and Staffordshire, and on by a
+route pretty nearly coinciding with that which will,
+after many centuries, be taken by the North-Western
+Railway, till at last we reach that city, comparatively
+unimportant in the official map of Roman Britain, but
+which the concourse of merchants is even now making
+important in spite of prefects and procurators,
+‘the city formerly known as Londinium, but now
+named Augusta.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Existing traces of Roman occupation.</i></div>
+
+<p>In our own day, at nearly every step of our course
+along this great highway, which our ancestors named
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>the Watling Street, there is some trace of the
+Roman legionary and his sojourn in our island.
+Here the coins of some military treasure chest
+buried in haste and never reclaimed; there the
+shells of the oysters or the bones of the beef which
+the soldiers consumed; here a dedication to some
+native god bearing an uncouth name, with whom
+they thought it safer to be on friendly terms; there
+the pathetic epitaph of a departed wife ‘who lived
+with her husband xxx years, “<i>sine ulla macula</i>,”’
+with no spot upon her goodness; here the walls of a
+camp turned by centuries into mere grassy mounds,
+but still by their rectangular shape rounded at the
+corners, showing the handiwork of the Roman surveyor;
+there an inscription recording the rebuilding
+of a bath or a granary, ‘<i>vetustate conlapsum</i>’ (which
+had fallen in through age), and reminding us how
+old and venerable the buildings erected by the first
+conquerors of Britain must have appeared long before
+the last Roman soldier, standing upon the stern of
+the departing vessel, waved his sad ‘<i>Vale Britannia</i>’
+to our island.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Boundaries of the Roman World.</i></div>
+
+<p>All these vestiges of the great world-Empire, when
+one examines them patiently day after day, as it has
+often been my privilege to do in travelling along
+one of the great Roman roads in our own country
+or abroad, produce an effect upon the mind incomparably
+stronger and deeper than results from simply
+reading the story of the conquest of a province in
+the pages of Caesar or Tacitus. And now multiply
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>this picture at least thirty-fold in order to make it
+justly represent the whole extent of the Empire.
+Cross the sea from ‘Londinium, now Augusta,’ to the
+mouth of the Rhine. Travel for days up that stately
+river and see the legionaries swarming upon its
+western, and not unknown upon its eastern bank.
+Trace the 300 miles of stake-covered rampart
+which join the Middle Rhine to the Middle Danube,
+and along every mile of which a Roman soldier is
+tramping. Descend the Danube from Ratisbon to
+the Euxine and see every foot of its right bank held
+by Rome, who for more than a century holds a
+province on the left bank also (the province of Dacia),
+and stations her legionaries on the crests of the Carpathian
+Mountains. Take ship and sail over the
+foggy Euxine, and there, in its extreme south-eastern
+corner, near where Jason and his companions sought
+the Golden Fleece, recognise once more the Roman
+boundary. Follow that boundary over the mountains
+of Armenia to the upper waters of the Tigris.
+Cross ‘the great river, the River Euphrates,’ near
+the place where Eliezer waited for Rebekah by the
+well; and then encompassing Damascus and the mysterious
+cities of Bashan, let the border come down
+past the Dead Sea, past Mount Pisgah and Mount
+Sinai, and so overleaping the Red Sea, let it reach
+the valley of the Nile. Here the frontier towards the
+barbarism of Ethiopia is the same that the modern
+protectors of Egypt have drawn close to the city of
+Syene (now Assouan); leaving 800 miles of the rich
+Nile valley as the granary of Rome. All along the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>northern coast of Africa, Cyrene, Tripolis, Carthage,
+Numidia, Mauretania, whatever there is of civilised,
+stable, wealth-producing life (and it is a broad enough
+belt in some places) is all Roman by obedience, and
+much of it Latin by speech. At last the boundary
+goes out at the Atlantic Ocean where Hercules once
+relieved Atlas of his load. Men gazing forth upon the
+waste of waters, and half discovering, half dreaming,
+concerning the Fortunate Isles beyond, are constrained
+at length to admit the fact that the great
+Empire has found its limit, and that if there be other
+worlds to the West they are worlds beyond the
+world of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Orbis Romanus nearly coincided with the Orbis Terrarum.</i></div>
+
+<p>It was an immense extent of territory which the
+Roman god Terminus thus marked out, and (as has
+been often pointed out, but is a fact of the greatest
+importance) it more nearly embraced the whole of
+the then known and civilised world than any Empire
+that has since been seen. True, the mysterious
+river of Asiatic civilisation, as represented by China
+and India, flowed on, not blending its waters with
+those which the Tiber ruled. But these countries
+were practically altogether beyond the horizon of
+the Empire. During the first three centuries of our
+era there was only one civilised power of which
+Rome was conscious as a possible rival to herself,
+and that was the power of Persia. Her sovereign,
+whether he were known as Parthian or Persian,
+as Arsacid or Sassanid, took to himself proud
+titles, calling himself ‘King of Kings,’ and so forth,
+and often by his devastating raids inflicted sore
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>disaster on the Eastern provinces of Rome; but the
+Empire was certainly far the stronger power, and
+many of the abler Emperors could probably, if they
+had deemed it wise to make the attempt, have accomplished
+what Julian so narrowly missed and
+what Heraclius triumphantly performed, the overthrow
+of the Persian monarchy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Government of the Roman State.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Senatus Populus Que Romanus.</i></div>
+
+<p>This vast territory had been acquired by the
+municipality of an Italian city under a government
+which was in some respects the best adapted for
+gaining and for consolidating dominion that the
+world has ever seen. S.P.Q.R.: these four letters
+formed the talisman which floated on the victorious
+standards of Rome, whether they crowned the misty
+heights of the Cheviots or were mirrored in the
+waters of the Orontes. The Senate and the People
+of Rome: we must pause for a few moments on these
+words to consider what they implied.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Roman Senate under the Republic.</i></div>
+
+<p>(1) The Senate of Rome, in its best days reminding
+the beholder of an assembly of Kings, debating the
+affairs of the Republic with a gravity, an earnestness
+and a conciseness very unlike the showy rhetoric of
+a Greek <i>Ecclesia</i> or the vapid verbiage of a modern
+House of Commons or House of Representatives:
+this was the body which gave coherence and unity to
+the policy of the great Latin city, which prevented it
+from being swayed to and fro by such gusts of
+passion or misplaced sentiment as ruined the Empire
+of Athens; which caused it to pursue, century after
+century, the same undeviating course, and to act
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>upon the same maxims of statesmanship—hard
+maxims often, and inspired by a terrible egotism, but
+successful. It was the Senate which enabled the
+Roman State to feel the proud confidence that was
+expressed with less justice by that patient toiler,
+Philip of Spain, ‘Time and I against any one else in
+the world.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Not a mere hereditary aristocracy.</i></div>
+
+<p>One source of the Senate’s strength was derived
+from the fact that it was never in theory and seldom
+in practice a mere hereditary aristocracy. Election to
+some one of the great offices of the State into which
+the kingly power had been divided, Consulship,
+Praetorship, Quaestorship, was the door by which
+entrance was gained into the ‘assembly of Kings’—and
+this election in the better days of the Republic
+implied a certain amount of popular respect if not
+of popular favour—but once admitted, the Senator
+had his seat practically for life, and needed not to
+tremble at every changing wind of popular opinion,
+lest the withdrawal of the favour of his constituents
+should doom him to political annihilation. The
+chasm which once separated the Patrician from the
+Plebeian, and which made it impossible for the latter
+to enter the Senate, had been filled up long before
+Rome began to play her great part among the
+nations of the earth: but it is true that a new
+aristocracy of consular families, partly Patrician and
+partly Plebeian, had arisen on the ruins of the old.
+A Terentius Varro, a Marius, a Cicero could by great
+energy, by military successes, or by surpassing
+eloquence, break through into the charmed circle,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>but the outcry that was raised at the presumption of
+such a <i>novus homo</i> showed that the event was a rare
+one.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Censorship.</i></div>
+
+<p>One institution, however, which modern aristocracies
+would do well to copy, tended to save the
+Senate from the worst perils of a hereditary oligarchy.
+To be ruled by a proud nobility which respects itself
+is perhaps not pleasant, but it is endurable. But to
+be ruled by ‘hereditary legislators’ who do not
+observe the ordinary decencies of life is an ignominy
+too galling to be borne. The power of the <i>Censor</i> to
+degrade from his Senatorial office any man who
+offended against the strict old-fashioned code of
+Roman morality, a power which in the best days
+of the Republic was wielded with merciless severity
+and without respect of persons, must have largely
+contributed to that moral ascendency of the Senate
+which made it for four centuries as supreme in
+Roman politics as the House of Commons has
+been for the last two centuries in the politics of
+Britain.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The People of Rome.</i></div>
+
+<p>(2) The People of Rome, the Quirites, assembled
+by their centuries, or their tribes, under an Italian
+sky, in the Campus Martius or the Forum—these
+also had their allotted share in the development
+of the greatness of Rome: these formed
+the strong steadily beating heart, without which
+all the accumulated wisdom of the Senate, the
+brain of the State, would have been of no avail.
+Questions of peace and war, and questions of political
+reform, were brought before them, generally, it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>is true, on the motion of the Senate, but so as
+to cast the final responsibility on the people; and
+during the greater part of the lifetime of the Republic
+those solemn trials of political offenders
+which correspond most nearly to our own impeachments
+took place at the bar of the popular
+assembly.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Tribunes.</i></div>
+
+<p>To guard these rights and to secure the meanest
+citizen of Rome from oppression on the part of some
+haughty aristocrat, the Tribunes of the Commonalty
+were called into being, that unique class of
+magistrates whose power of ‘intercession’ could
+bring the whole machinery of the State to a deadlock,
+and upon whose ‘sacro-sanct’ persons the
+proudest Consul, fresh from victory over the enemies
+of Rome, might not lay hands without incurring the
+penalty of outlawry. The office which the Member
+of Parliament has hitherto discharged when he
+brings the grievance of a constituent before the
+House of Commons; the office of redresser of all
+wrongs and browbeater of all magistrates, which the
+Public Press has of later time arrogated to itself—these
+offices were for centuries discharged by the
+Tribunes of the Commonalty. Upon the whole
+we may believe that the Tribunician power was
+a useful counterpoise to the immense authority
+vested in Consuls and Praetors: but it was always
+a power which in the hands of a dishonest demagogue
+might be abused for the purpose of obstruction.
+It was always useful only as a brake is useful
+to the driver of a railway train; and in the latter
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>days of the Republic it was a brake suddenly and
+clumsily applied, by which the Engine of the State
+was being continually thrown off the line.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Political decline.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>B.C. 367-146.</i></div>
+
+<p>But, such as they were, these two great depositaries
+of power, the Senate and the People, wrought
+together in reasonable harmony, and upon the
+whole for the good of Rome and the fast widening
+Roman world, during the two centuries which intervened
+between the admission of Plebeians to the
+Consulate and the Third Punic War. With the
+fall of Rome’s old rival, Carthage, a rapid change
+for the worse manifested itself in the Roman character.
+Corruption entered the Senate and brutal
+violence disgraced the Assembly of the People.
+The young Roman politician half ruined himself
+over the shows of gladiators and wild beasts that
+were to purchase from the commonalty his election
+to the successive offices which were the steps in the
+ladder of his promotion. The mob cheered and
+laughed, but the provinces groaned, for out of their
+plundered cities and beggared agriculture the Propraetor
+or Proconsul reckoned to recoup himself
+for the heavy entrance-fees which he had paid to
+gain admission to the Roman Senate. These
+abuses became at length too glaring for even the
+seared consciences of Roman politicians to endure.
+Laws against official extortion, ‘<i>de repetundis pecuniis</i>,’
+were passed by the people—a doubtful boon to
+the provincials, for now the governor robbed them,
+not for himself only, but for the rivals and the
+demagogues whose silence he had to purchase by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>bribes. In the train of the governor went the
+usurer, lending money at ruinous rates to the
+provincial to enable him to pay the clamorous tax-gatherer.
+Even Brutus, that Puritan among Roman
+statesmen, sought to compel the inhabitants of Salamis
+to pay him compound interest at the rate of
+48 per cent. per annum. Under these accumulated
+oppressions the fair countries round the Mediterranean
+were fast sinking into misery and despair,
+the very life-blood being drained out of them by
+the insatiable oligarchs of Rome. And during the
+greater part of this time, while the Senators were
+treating the civilised world as their own private farm,
+and farming it like a tenant who is under notice to
+quit and will get all he can out of the soil, the so-called
+People of Rome were every year sinking
+lower and lower into degradation, becoming a mere
+mob of freedmen and foreigners, the collected
+sewage of the world. The Constitution—notwithstanding
+a temporary reaction under Sulla—was
+becoming more and more democratic, as the people
+were becoming more utterly unworthy to be trusted
+with power. Armed bands of hired bravoes fought
+with one another in the streets of Rome, and on
+the day of a hotly-disputed election or the passing
+of an unpopular law, the statues in the Forum were
+splashed with the blood of the slain.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Shelley on the decay of Roman freedom.</i></div>
+
+<p>I know no words which more vividly bring before
+our minds the contrast between the Rome of Cincinnatus
+and the Rome of Clodius than this verse
+from Shelley’s ‘Ode to Liberty’:—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent2">‘Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom, fairest</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Like a wolf-cub, from some Cadmean Maenad</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>&#x2060;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">From that Elysian food was yet unweanëd.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">And many a deed of terrible uprightness</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">By thy sweet love was sanctified,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent6">And in thy smile and by thy side</div>
+      <div class="verse indent6">Saintly Camillus lived and firm Atilius&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> died.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">But when blood stained thy robe of vestal whiteness,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Thou didst desert with spirit-winged lightness</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">The Senate of the oppressors: they sank prone</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed</div>
+      <div class="verse indent6">Faint echoes of Ionian song. That tone</div>
+      <div class="verse indent6">Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>‘Slaves of one tyrant.’ That was the doom, the
+righteous doom of the Roman Senate and People.
+Corruption above and anarchy below had slain that
+Public Virtue without which a Republic cannot live:
+and now the only hope of the world lay in the uprising
+of some one man who should save Rome from
+herself, and rescue from her Senate and People the
+provinces which they had won but could no longer
+govern.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Caesar.</i></div>
+
+<p>This necessary work was performed by the man
+who stands head and shoulders above all other
+statesmen, as Isaiah above all other Prophets, as
+Shakespeare above all other Dramatists,—the man
+whose name still means Emperor to more than a
+hundred millions of mankind, <span class="smcap">Gaius Julius Caesar</span>.
+It may be truly said that the further we get away
+from Caesar the Dictator, the greater his work appears.
+Superficial students of history used to think
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>of it as only lasting for five centuries (yet five centuries,
+the interval of time that separates us from
+Chaucer and Wycliffe, is not a contemptible interval
+in a nation’s life): but the more scientific school of
+modern historians rightly claim that the work of
+Julius Caesar, the organisation of <i>Imperium Romanum</i>,
+outlived not only the fall of Rome, but the fall
+of Constantinople also, and was only destroyed by
+‘the bastard Caesar,’ Napoleon, in 1806, if indeed it
+be not, in a sense, living still.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theory of the Principate.</i></div>
+
+<p>As the various offices of the Republic had been
+formed chiefly out of the power of the ancient kings,
+it might have seemed the obvious course to recombine
+them into one, and crown Caesar king.
+Warned by the murmurs of the crowd on the day
+of the Lupercalia, but also doubtless following his
+own instinct as a statesman, Julius—and his nephew
+Augustus after him—chose a wiser course. The
+name of Republic should still remain: S.P.Q.R.
+should still be inscribed on the banners of the
+legions, but the powers of the Republic should all
+be grasped in a single hand. There had been Dictators
+created for special emergencies: Julius would
+be a life-long Dictator. Successful generals had been
+saluted Imperator by their soldiers on the field of
+battle: Julius would be emphatically <i>the</i> Imperator.
+Grave and reverend men, the fathers of the Senate,
+had been hailed with the title <i>Princeps</i>: Augustus
+would now in middle life be greeted as Princeps.
+Above all, the Tribunes of the Commonalty had
+possessed enormous powers for the prevention of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>legislation of which they disapproved, and their
+persons had been invested with especial sanctity.
+Augustus would now gather into himself all the
+obstructive powers of the whole College of Tribunes,
+and his person should be ‘sacro-sanct’ as theirs had
+been. Special defenders of the Commonalty were
+now no longer needed. The new Imperator claimed,
+and not altogether without reason, that <i>he</i> was defender
+of the people, and therefore each year by a
+fresh and solemn act he was ‘invested with the
+Tribunician power.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>A Monarchy under Republican forms.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Deference of the good Emperors to the Senate.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The bad Emperors delighted in degrading it.</i></div>
+
+<p>Our own Constitutional monarchy is often called
+‘a Republic veiled under monarchical forms.’ The
+Empire of the Caesars was just the reverse: an
+absolute monarchy veiled under the forms of a
+Republic. The analogy may be carried a little
+further. Just as every really great and patriotic
+Prime Minister, under a Constitutional monarchy
+like ours, veils somewhat of the power which in
+fact is his under the forms of deference to the
+throne, and does this not in servile adoration for
+rank, but because he knows that in the institution of
+Monarchy there is a fund of latent power which it
+were unwise to squander, and which may one day
+be sorely needed for the defence of the life of the
+nation against enemies from without or from within,
+even so the greatest and best of the Roman Emperors,
+while holding all power in their hands, used that
+power as much as possible in harmony with the
+Senate and in conformity with the Senate’s advice;
+and thus, while preserving the prestige of an ancient
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>and venerable assembly, also retained in the State a
+force which might operate as a counterpoise, though
+a feeble one, should the vast powers of the Emperor
+pass into the keeping of a foolish or wicked successor.
+But while the good and patriotic Emperors—Augustus,
+Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Claudius
+Gothicus, Probus—delighted to magnify the moral
+authority of the Senate, the weak and dissolute
+Emperors, maddened by the possession of absolute
+power, delighted to trample upon and insult it.
+Caligula forced Senators of the highest rank to
+walk for miles before his chariot, or to wait upon
+him at table, each clad in the linen girdle of a slave.
+Nero wrung from the loathing Senate a formal approbation
+of the murder of his mother, and insisted
+on 400 of its members performing as gladiators in
+the Amphitheatre. And Domitian, according to the
+well-known story in the pages of Juvenal, summoned
+the trembling Conscript Fathers in the dead of
+night to deliberate on the best manner of cooking
+an enormous turbot.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Provinces were the gainers by the Imperial system.</i></div>
+
+<p>But though the Senators groaned under the insults
+and the cruelty of the bad Emperors (of whom
+in the first century of the Empire there was undoubtedly
+a terrible preponderance over the good
+ones) there can be little doubt that for the Empire at
+large the change to the Imperial system was an
+enormous benefit. The populace of Rome had
+their rations and their gladiatorial exhibitions (<i>panem
+et circenses</i>) regularly, and what was more important,
+the police and the water supply of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>great City were attended to as they had never been
+before. The provinces were no longer exposed
+to the unchecked cupidity of some dissolute aristocrat,
+eager to suck them dry during his short
+term of office and then to hurry back to play the
+great game of politics in Rome. Unjust governors,
+men like Pontius Pilate and Felix, undoubtedly
+still bore sway; but at least they had as a rule a
+longer term of office, and less need therefore to
+drain the province all at once. And the thought of
+the terrible Caesar at Rome, who, however cruel
+and rapacious himself, was generally quick to
+punish cruelty and rapacity in others, the dread
+of hearing, after a manifestly unjust sentence, the
+fateful words pronounced, ‘Provoco ad Caesarem&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>&#x2060;,’
+kept many a provincial governor, who may have
+been at heart no better than Verres or Gabinius,
+from shearing the helpless sheep before him as
+closely as they would have been shorn in the later
+days of the Republic. It is one of the commonplaces
+of history that even Nero himself was hated
+only in Rome, and that after his death the story
+that he still lived and would one day return and
+resume the purple, was told and lovingly cherished
+in many of the provinces.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Chief periods of Imperial history.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>I. the Julian Dynasty, 99 years. (B.C. 31-A.D. 68.)</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Flavian Dynasty, 27 years. (69-96.)</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>II. The Antonines, 84 years. (96-180.)</i></div>
+
+<p>The history of the Empire naturally groups itself
+into periods, each of about a century in duration.
+The Julian dynasty, from the battle of Actium (<span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>
+31) to the death of Nero (<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 68), fills up ninety-nine
+years. We pass lightly over the twenty-seven
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>years of the Flavian dynasty (69-96), which is in
+some respects like a copy of the Julian, Vespasian
+being a somewhat commonplace Augustus and
+Domitian a vulgar Nero, and we come to the great
+and glorious age of the Antonines&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>&#x2060;. For eighty-four
+years (<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 96-180) a series of sovereigns, the
+best, the wisest and the most statesmanlike that the
+world has ever seen—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
+Antoninus, Marcus—sat upon the throne of the
+world. What has been already said as to the
+happiness of the provinces under the Julian
+dynasty might be said without any qualification,
+as far as the rulers could bring happiness, of the
+century of Antonine rule. But according to the
+trite quotation—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘How small, of all that human hearts endure,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The course of nature seems as if it had been out
+of joint during that otherwise happy century. Destructive
+earthquakes, wide-wandering pestilences
+and grievous famines marked its course; and at
+the close of it came that terrible irruption of barbarians
+from the lands of the Middle Danube which
+is known as the Marcomannic War, and which
+very nearly brought about the fall of the Roman
+Empire two centuries too soon.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>III. The Age of Anarchy, 105 years. (180-285.)</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Debased Coinage.</i></div>
+
+<p>The stately and philosophic virtue of the Antonine
+Emperors led to a terrible anti-climax—the
+mad sensuality and cruelty of the bull-necked
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>Commodus. And now began that terrible third
+century, in which the great World-Empire seemed
+perpetually as if it were on the point of going to
+pieces, through its own weakness and corruption,
+before the barbarians were ready even to gather
+up its fragments. It had been discovered ‘that an
+emperor could be made elsewhere than in Rome,’
+and in every province, almost in every legionary
+camp, there was an upstart General eager to avail
+himself of this discovery, eager to wrap himself
+in the purple and to lay hold of what the Greek
+historians call ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχή, ‘the rule of the
+universe.’ The strongest memory can hardly retain
+the names of all the obscure adventurers
+who thus blossomed into a little temporary notoriety,
+and who were murdered by a rival or fell
+on the field of battle before their purple had lost
+the lustre of its newness. Province thus fighting
+against province and civil war being the normal
+condition of the Empire, the misery and poverty
+which everywhere prevailed can hardly be imagined,
+and are but scantily pourtrayed for us by the
+wretched historians of the time. Two things, however,
+always occur to my mind as typical of this
+woeful age—its coinage and its camps. Take a
+coin of one of the earlier Emperors, say a bronze
+sestertius of Domitian, which lies before me while
+I write: see the clear bold relief of the laurel-crowned
+head, the sharp, well-cut letters of the
+inscription, and then compare it with a (so-called)
+silver denarius of Valerian or Gallienus—a thin
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>bit of copper with a wash of silver or pewter over
+it, and upon it the barbarous effigy of a head wearing
+a radiated crown and surrounded by an almost illegible
+inscription. From a mere glance at the coins
+you feel at once that the owner of a sestertius (whose
+nominal value was twopence-halfpenny) under Domitian
+was a richer man than the owner of a denarius
+(the equivalent of four sestertii) under Gallienus.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Degenerate Architecture.</i></div>
+
+<p>And the camps: go to Housesteads or Chesters
+and see the splendid blocks of masonry which
+belong to the age of the Antonines; see the
+masonry of a very different and far inferior kind,
+small and mean and easily overthrown, which
+marks the age of Constantine, after the close of
+the third century. But in between these two
+periods of original building and late repair you
+may often find a mass of confused <i>débris</i>, sometimes
+with the marks of fire upon them. That
+shapeless mound tells the story of the third century.
+While every little Tribune or Centurion was
+coquetting with the soldiers under his command,
+relaxing discipline and permitting plunder, in the
+hope that they might some morning rush to the
+Praetorium, put on him the purple robe and hail
+him as Imperator, meantime the <i>Pax Romana</i>
+was becoming a bitter bye-word over all the Empire,
+and in our own country the savage Caledonians
+were breaking down the barrier of Hadrian,
+setting fire to Cilurnum and Borcovicus, swarming
+across the Tyne and Tees, and carrying fire and
+sword far into the heart of Britain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>IV. The Age of Restoration, 93 years. (285-378.)</i></div>
+
+<p>The deliverer of the world from this tempest of
+anarchy and disruption, the true Second Founder
+of the Empire was the son of a Dalmatian slave,
+Diocletian. As his reign began <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 285, as the work
+of reorganisation which was commenced by him was
+continued by Constantine (306-337), and as the
+political system thus inaugurated lasted unimpaired
+till 378, the date of the battle of Hadrianople, we
+may call this the fourth century of the Empire, the
+period of Restoration.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Objects of the Diocletianic reform.</i></div>
+
+<p>The great objects aimed at and accomplished by
+Diocletian were the increase of the majesty of the
+Imperial office, the equable diffusion of defensive
+power through all parts of the Empire, the welding
+of a strong chain of rights and responsibilities which
+should vibrate from the Emperor on his throne to
+the lowest official in the most distant province.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Increased veneration for the Imperial dignity.</i></div>
+
+<p>(1) The increased majesty of the Emperor’s office.
+All pretence of his being only the first citizen in a
+Republic, only the most eminent member of the
+Senate, and so on, was now done away with. The
+Emperor now wore on his head a pearl-bordered
+diadem, on his feet sandals studded with gems; he
+was surrounded by a splendid retinue, and the petitioner
+who approached him—though he were a member
+of one of the proudest families in the Roman
+Senate—had to prostrate himself on the ground and
+<i>adore</i> the Imperial Majesty. Thus at length the
+Roman Imperator stood fully revealed, a monarch
+as haughty and as absolute as Darius or Sapor. In
+all this, censorious critics traced the overweening
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>pride of the Dalmatian slave’s son exalted to the
+pinnacle of earthly greatness: yet it is probable
+that policy had as much share as pride in the self-exaltation
+of Diocletian. During the long troubles
+of the third century, when every legion was making
+and unmaking Emperors, the highest office in the
+State had lost all dignity and all prestige: and if it
+was really to recover itself and become, as Diocletian
+would have it, the true centre of gravity of the State,
+it was necessary that it should once again seem
+awful and majestic. The same statesmanlike spirit
+which dictated to Augustus the suppression of the
+visible signs of regal magnificence, suggested to Diocletian
+their multiplication and embellishment.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Division of labour.</i></div>
+
+<p>(2) It had become manifest to a statesman’s eye
+that the vast Roman world could no longer be ruled
+from Rome alone. On the Rhine, on the Danube,
+on the Euphrates, strong armies were required to
+guard the frontiers: yet it was precisely from these
+armies, strangers to the Imperial city and to the
+person of the legitimate Augustus, that the brood of
+usurpers and tyrants, claimants for the Imperial
+purple, was being perpetually recruited. Diocletian
+now carved out the Roman Empire into four great
+Prefectures, each large enough to satisfy the ambition
+of a Charles V or a Louis XIV, and gave to
+each of these Prefectures its own court, its own
+capital, its own elaborately organised official hierarchy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The four Prefectures.</i></div>
+
+<p>I. ‘The Gauls,’ comprising Britain, Gaul, Spain,
+and part of Morocco, and reaching from the Firth of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>Clyde to Mount Atlas, had its centre of government
+at Augusta Trevirorum (Trier on the Moselle).</p>
+
+<p>II. ‘Italy,’ comprising Raetia, Italy, Sicily, and
+the wealthy provinces of Africa, was still in theory
+governed from Rome; but practically its Emperor
+during the whole of the fourth century was generally
+resident at Mediolanum (Milan).</p>
+
+<p>III. Illyricum, the smallest of the four Prefectures,
+included the provinces of the Middle Danube,
+the western portion of the country lately known as
+Turkey in Europe, and Greece. Sirmium on the
+Save was generally the residence of its Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>IV. All the rest of the Empire formed the rich
+and important Prefecture of the East (Oriens). Its
+Emperor for the most part resided at Antioch, from
+whence he watched the ever menacing attitude of
+the Sassanid kings of Persia.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Transmission of the Imperial power.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Abdication of Diocletian, 305.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Constantius. Elevation of Constantine, 25 July,
+306.</i></div>
+
+<p>The great scheme of Imperial government matured
+by the brain of Diocletian, provided not only for the
+exercise but also for the transmission of power.
+The adoptive system, which had given to the Empire
+all the noblest sovereigns of the Antonine period, was
+to be revived in all its vigour. Two Emperors
+ruling as Augusti were to adopt two younger colleagues
+as their sons, who were to bear the humbler
+title of Caesar, and were to administer those Prefectures
+in which the danger of war was the keenest,
+and the labour of ruling the most severe. As in the
+course of nature the two senior partners, the Augusti,
+moved off the scene, the Caesars were to take their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>place and adopt two new Caesars to ease them of
+their burden, and one day inherit their dignity. An
+elaborate and ingenious scheme, and one which might
+conceivably have preserved the Empire from civil
+war at least for two or three generations, but which
+in fact was broken to pieces by that longing after the
+hereditary transmission of power and wealth which
+is one of the deepest instincts of humanity. Diocletian
+and Maximian (a brave, uncultivated soldier)
+were the two first Augusti: Constantius and Galerius
+the two first Caesars. After a prosperous reign
+of twenty years, enfeebled health and perhaps a
+desire to see with his own eyes the success of his
+great design, induced Diocletian voluntarily to resign
+the purple, and Maximian, who had no such philosophical
+inclinations and who was still in the lusty
+vigour of middle life, was compelled to follow the
+example of his patron. Thus did Constantius and
+Galerius become the two new Augusti, but Galerius,
+who was the son-in-law and special confidant of Diocletian,
+had the choice of the two new Caesars, and
+chose a nephew and a dependent of his own, Maximin
+Daza and Severus, neither of them really fitted for
+‘the rule of all things.’ Constantius, a man of mild
+and gentle temper, away in distant Britain and already
+smitten by disease, acquiesced in the nominations of
+his self-seeking partner; but the offspring and the
+soldiers of Constantius rebelled against an arrangement
+so one-sided and inequitable. Constantine, the
+brave young son of Constantius by his concubine
+Helena, now in his thirty-second year, was at Nicomedia
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>in Bithynia when Diocletian’s abdication threw
+the direction of the affairs of the Imperial partnership
+into the hands of Galerius, who viewed him with no
+friendly eye, and would fain have kept him in honourable
+captivity in Asia. Repeated letters from his
+colleague Constantius at length wrung from him
+the required permission for the young man’s departure,
+and Constantine, according to a well-known
+story, starting on the long journey across Thrace
+by the Danube and the Rhine, caused the horses at
+the first few Imperial post-stations to be hamstrung,
+in order to prevent any courier from overtaking him
+with a revocation of the order. He reached York
+in safety; he made a successful campaign in Caledonia
+under his father’s auspices, and when that
+father returned to York to die, the legionaries, led
+by a Teutonic chief Crocus, king of the Alamanni,
+who held high command among them, insisted with
+one voice, that the diadem and the purple of the
+deceased Emperor should adorn his noble son, and
+that whatever the new-fangled constitution of Diocletian
+might prescribe, his title should be not Caesar
+but Augustus. Of the myriads of travellers who
+hurry to and fro through the magnificent railway
+station of York, how few find time to visit the
+admirable museum of Roman antiquities which is
+within a few hundred yards of the station, to gaze
+upon the ‘multangular tower’ with its courses of
+square Roman bricks, and in thought to retrace the
+history of York, Eoforwic, Eboracum, up to that day
+when the shouting soldiery, enraptured with the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>donative which each man had received, acclaimed
+the young hero ‘Constantine Imperator tu vincas.’
+Strange is it to reflect that then what we call ‘the
+Eternal Eastern Question’ had no existence, since
+he who was to give his name to Constantinople was
+only setting his foot on the first rung of the ladder
+of power, and the Bosphorus, with the inconsiderable
+city of Byzantium on its shores, was still a silent
+and solitary water-way, while Eboracum was making
+and unmaking Emperors.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Confusion and Civil War.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Suicide of Diocletian, 313.</i></div>
+
+<p>By the elevation of Constantine to the Imperial
+dignity—an elevation which Galerius found himself
+eventually forced to consent to—the whole of Diocletian’s
+elaborate scheme of adoption, partnership
+and succession was shattered into atoms. The son
+of Maximian, Maxentius, followed the example of the
+son of Constantius and declared himself Augustus.
+Then old Maximian himself resumed the purple.
+In the year 308 there were six Emperors reigning
+at once, all styling themselves Augusti. Civil war
+in such conditions as these became the chronic condition
+of the Empire. The fable of the armed men
+who sprang from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus,
+and who fought with one another all the long
+summer’s day till only five were left, became a
+terrible truth. Such was the scene, such the utter
+failure of his grand project for promoting the peace
+of the Empire upon which the weary eyes of Diocletian
+closed, when, seeking refuge in death from
+the indignities which his young successors would
+have put upon him, he passed away from earth in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>his stately palace by the Adriatic, that palace which
+in the Middle Ages became a city&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Constantine and Licinius, 315.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Constantine sole ruler, 323.</i></div>
+
+<p>Of the dragon’s brood of combatants, at the time
+of the death of Diocletian only two were left, Constantine
+in the West and Licinius in the East. A
+short civil war was terminated by an apparent reconciliation
+between the two kinsmen (Licinius had
+married the sister of Constantine), and for eight
+years Licinius seemed to be satisfied with an arrangement
+which left him only the Eastern quarter of the
+Roman world, while the Gauls, Italy and Illyricum
+obeyed his more fortunate and far abler rival. But</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Never could true reconcilement grow,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Where wounds of deadly hate had pierced so deep.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The terrible loneliness of those who climb to the
+high places of power, their incapacity of tolerating a
+rival near the throne produced the usual results, and
+in 323 the second civil war broke out. Over land and
+sea the two mighty storm-clouds moved with terrific
+momentum against one another. Thirty-four thousand
+men fell on the hardly-contested field of Hadrianople.
+Crispus, the brave young son of Constantine,
+forced the passage of the Dardanelles and laid siege
+to Byzantium. The final battle was fought in September,
+323, at Chrysopolis in Bithynia. Licinius was
+defeated after a most bloody encounter, in which
+25,000 of his followers were slain. He implored
+and seemed to receive the pardon of his ‘Emperor
+and Master’ Constantine, but in the following
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>year, on some suspicion of conspiracy, was put to
+death. Seventeen years after his being proclaimed
+at York, Constantine was sole and absolute master
+of the Roman world.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Christianity and the Empire. (303-313.)</i></div>
+
+<p>The generation which witnessed the break-down
+of Diocletian’s scheme of adoptive succession witnessed
+also the final triumph of Christianity over its
+persecutors. By a somewhat undeserved fate, the
+name of the great restorer of the Empire has been
+handed down to after ages as that of the fiercest and
+most cruel of the oppressors of the Church. The
+persecution of the Christians which was commenced
+under Diocletian, and which continued, with some
+intermission, for the two last years of his reign and
+till the eighth year after his abdication, was not
+apparently originated by him, but by his younger
+and infinitely less statesmanlike colleague Galerius,
+who obtained the sanction indeed, but not the hearty
+co-operation of the aged and now valetudinarian
+Emperor. Still it must be admitted that Diocletian,
+though no fanatical adorer of the Olympian gods,
+believed in the necessity, on political grounds, of
+one great and relentless struggle for the suppression
+of the ‘new and illicit religion’ which had grown up
+in the bosom of the Roman State, and which, as all
+men of clear insight perceived, must either conquer
+it or be conquered by it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Constantine’s attitude towards Christianity.</i></div>
+
+<p>The same purely political instinct which made
+Diocletian persecute, led Constantine to foster and
+favour the Christian Church. Could we penetrate
+the secrets of the hearts of these two men, we might
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>find that their religious convictions were not very
+dissimilar. Both were probably at heart Monotheists,
+both had that belief in a just and overruling
+Providence, which comes to most men who are in
+authority, and who, seeing the endless labour and
+contrivance which is needed in an earthly ruler to
+keep his world in any degree of order and peace,
+cannot easily persuade themselves that the whole of
+this fair system of things which we see around us
+came by chance. It may be doubted whether, in his
+heart of hearts, Diocletian went much beyond this
+position in his worship of Jupiter, or Constantine—at
+any rate till near the close of his life—in his belief
+in Christ. But the younger Emperor saw clearly that
+no fresh attempt to extirpate Christianity by force
+could succeed when Diocletian had failed; that the
+new religion made of its votaries not only better
+men, but, upon the whole, better citizens and more
+loyal subjects; that it possessed a force which,
+wisely guided, might be used for the preservation
+and not for the disruption of the Empire; above all,
+that the zealous partisanship of Christian bishops
+and priests would be a far more valuable ally to him
+in the desperate strife with his competitors—first
+with Maxentius and then with Licinius—than the
+languid half-hearted acquiescence of the Pagans in
+the religion which was a fashion rather than a faith,
+handed down to them from their forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, then, the alliance of Constantine with the
+Christian Church was formed, that alliance of which
+the imposing Council of Nicaea, consisting of 318
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>bishops, presided over by the great Augustus himself,
+glorious in purple and gold, was the most conspicuous
+seal and symbol. But though Constantine
+fostered, and, if I may so say, petted the Christian
+Church, he did not bring about that complete and
+intimate union of the State and the Church which
+was to be the distinguishing mark of the later, and
+pre-eminently of the Eastern Empire. Christian
+ideas indeed coloured much of his legislation. An
+edict was passed for the observance of ‘the Saviour’s
+day, the day of Light and of the Sun;’ and the soldiers,
+even those who did not profess Christianity,
+were enjoined to meet on that day in some open
+space near the city in which they were quartered and
+to lift up their hands to heaven thanking God for past
+victories, and imploring Him long to preserve in
+safety and triumph their Emperor Constantine and his
+pious sons. Every attempt to compel Christians to be
+present at idolatrous sacrifices was rigorously forbidden.
+The more licentious of the heathen orgies
+were forcibly suppressed. Many idol temples were
+thrown open to the gaze of the vulgar, and some
+were stripped of their treasures and their revenues
+for the benefit of the Imperial Treasury.</p>
+
+<p>Still there was no formal renunciation of the worship
+of the gods of the Capitol—no formal recognition
+of Christianity as <i>the</i> religion of the Empire.
+The temples, though in some cases robbed of their
+gold and silver ornaments, remained standing; nay,
+even in the new and Christian capital, in Constantinople
+itself, new temples were erected, of course not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>without the Emperor’s cognisance, to Rhea, to the
+Great Twin Brethren, to the Fortune of the New
+Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Religious policy of Constantine’s successors.</i></div>
+
+<p>Two generations passed after the foundation of
+Constantinople, during which the relation of the
+Empire to the Christian Church was the central
+question of all politics. These were the years during
+which the strife between Athanasian and Arian was
+being waged in all its bitterness, and the influence of
+Constantius, the survivor of the sons of Constantine,
+and eventually the sole ruler of the Roman
+Empire, was thrown with passionate earnestness
+on the side of the Arians, on whose behalf he
+exerted a severity which sometimes amounted to
+actual persecution of their opponents. Then came
+the short and fruitless attempt of Julian to restore
+the worship of the old gods. After his death followed
+some further struggles with Arianism, which
+could again boast the protection of an Eastern
+Emperor&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>&#x2060;. All these events tended to bring the
+supreme civil power more and more deeply into the
+innermost circle of ecclesiastical politics. Men’s
+minds became familiarised with the idea of one
+supreme and triumphant form of the Christian faith,
+professed by the Emperor, inscribed on the forefront
+of the State, and rigorously imposed on all citizens
+as an essential condition of their citizenship. This
+consummation was reached under that Emperor
+whose fortunes I shall before long have to describe
+to you, under Theodosius, who proclaimed the final
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>triumph of the Athanasian faith, commanded all his
+subjects to adhere to it, prohibited the meetings of
+heretics, destroyed the temples of the gods, and
+made orthodox Christianity, what it continued for
+more than a thousand years, the State religion of
+the Roman Empire.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_II">LECTURE II.<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Roman and the Teuton.</span><br>
+<i class="smaller">Comparison of the Political and Social Condition of<br>
+the Empire and its German Neighbours.</i></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<h3>§ 1. <span class="smcap">The Roman.</span></h3>
+
+<p>Before I proceed to describe the collision between
+the Roman Empire and its Northern neighbours,
+I wish to sketch, in rapid outline, the chief features
+of the political and social condition of these two
+worlds, so close to one another in geographical
+position, so far removed from one another in the
+stages of their respective development.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Imperial Majesty.</i></div>
+
+<p>We saw something in the last lecture of the process
+by which the Roman Augustus had grown to
+be what he was, the man with the mightiest opportunities
+for good or for evil of any on the surface of
+our planet. Let us now look for a few minutes at
+the outward presentation of this greatness to the
+eyes of his subjects. If we enter the Imperial
+palace and pass the first veil which guards the ante-chamber
+of the sovereign we find ourselves at length
+before a second veil, in front of which are watching
+thirty <i>Silentiarii</i> in brightly burnished helmet and
+breastplate, defending the ‘Silence’ of the innermost
+sanctuary from any rude intrusion. Without the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>favour of some ‘illustrious’ functionary there would
+be for us but little hope of entrance into that august
+seclusion: but we who have travelled back over
+fifteen centuries of time can push aside the spectral
+<i>Silentiarius</i> who would forbid our entrance, and can
+gaze, without the humiliating ceremony of prostration
+(exacted from all his contemporary subjects),
+upon the face and figure of the dread Augustus.
+He has perhaps just returned from the amphitheatre,
+and wears therefore the full robes of royalty in which
+he displays himself on state occasions to his subjects.
+On his head is the diadem, a broad white band studded
+with two rows of pearls, and with an emerald or a
+carbuncle blazing in the centre. Jewelled ear-rings
+hang down on either side of his face. Over his
+shoulders is hung a purple robe, richly embroidered
+with gold, similar to the <i>vestis picta</i> which a conquering
+general used to wear in old times when he
+was drawn in triumph to the Capitol. The use of
+that purple colour is now jealously reserved to the
+Emperor himself, the members of the Imperial
+family, the Consuls, and a few of the most highly
+placed officers of state. For any ordinary subject
+to wear it would be an act of <i>laesa majestas</i> (high
+treason). More than once has a Roman citizen lost
+his life, simply because a purple robe has been
+found in his possession. Upon his feet the Emperor
+wears sandals of the same purple dye, and these
+also are richly studded with jewels.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of all this pomp, though sleek
+eunuchs and brilliantly dressed pages are moving
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>obsequiously through the chamber, eager to anticipate
+the slightest wish of their master, the Lord of
+the Universe does not present the outward show
+of happiness. There is a look of weariness and
+anxiety in his face, dark lines under his eyes;
+languor and satiety in the very tones of his voice.
+Though there are some exceptions to the rule, the
+Augustus, since the changes introduced by Diocletian,
+leads generally an indoor life, unfavourable to
+health. He does not take those long and varied
+journeys which filled up the life of Hadrian: he
+does not, except in dire necessity, march at the head
+of his troops like Trajan: he does not even drive
+chariots and contend for prizes in the theatre like
+Nero. He has now to keep himself aloof from his
+subjects in dignified seclusion: his chief business in
+life is to be worshipped: and the life of an idol
+must, as it seems to us, be always a tedious life.
+The one thing that varies the monotony of the
+slowly-pacing days is fear—that fear which, even
+under this new and more settled order of things, no
+Emperor can wholly banish from his mind—that in
+some camp of misty Britain, or by the mob of some
+Syrian city, a rival Augustus may be suddenly acclaimed,
+and that it may be necessary to struggle
+not for dominion only but for bare life against the
+desperate antagonist.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Deification of the Emperor.</i></div>
+
+<p>The being who dwelt in this stately seclusion was
+not only raised to the ranks of the gods after his
+death (‘<i>Divus</i>’ being the regular official prefix of
+the name of a deceased Emperor): he was occasionally
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>even addressed as ‘<i>Deus Noster</i>,’ ‘our God,’
+during his life. ‘<i>Dominus Noster</i>,’ ‘our Lord’ or
+‘our Master,’ was, however, his more usual title,
+this appellation which the modesty of Augustus had
+waived (since, as he said, it implied that those who
+used it were his slaves) having been freely accepted,
+and then jealously claimed, by his successors of the
+Lower Empire. Everything belonging to the Emperor
+was habitually, and without any trace of irony,
+spoken of as ‘Sacred.’ The ‘sacred bedchamber’
+meant the Emperor’s bedroom: the ‘sacred largesses,’
+the Imperial subscription-list. ‘Our Mildness,’
+‘our Tranquillity,’ ‘our Clemency,’ are the
+terms which the Emperors generally use when they
+are speaking of themselves, though occasionally we
+find an Emperor soaring even to higher regions of
+august self-contemplation and speaking of himself as
+‘my Eternity&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>&#x2060;.’ This reverential mode of speaking
+of the Emperor’s dignity by no means disappeared
+with the adoption of Christianity. A writer on
+military affairs, who was probably contemporary with
+Theodosius&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>&#x2060;, says of the oath taken by the army:
+‘The soldiers swear by God and Christ and the
+Holy Spirit, and by the Majesty of the Emperor,
+which, according to the will of God, is to be loved
+and worshipped by the human race. For when the
+Emperor has received the name of Augustus, faithful
+devotion is to be rendered, life-long service is to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>be paid, to him as to God present in a human body&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>&#x2060;.
+For that man, whether soldier or civilian, serves
+God who faithfully loves him who reigns by God’s
+ordinance.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Imperial Consistory.</i></div>
+
+<p>In one of the apartments of the palace was assembled
+the <i>Consistory</i> of the Emperor, a body somewhat
+resembling our Privy Council, and consisting
+of all the highest officials of the State. From this
+Consistory now went forth all laws, addressed in the
+Emperor’s name to some great functionary charged
+to see to their execution. Here, too, were announced
+the names of those persons whom the Emperor
+nominated to the highest places in the civil and
+military service. All this legislative and administrative
+work, which in the days of the Republic had
+required the concurrence of the Senate and People
+of Rome, and a large share of which had been left
+even by Augustus and Tiberius to the Senate, was
+now done by the mere <i>fiat</i> of the Emperor; and only
+slight traces of even a theoretical right of confirmation
+by the Senate, none at all of such a right of
+confirmation by the People, seem to have been
+preserved.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Three classes in the Imperial hierarchy.</i></div>
+
+<p>The officials, civil and military, by whom the work
+of ruling the vast Roman Empire was carried on,
+were divided into three great classes:—</p>
+
+<p>1. The <i>Illustres</i>, nearly corresponding to our
+Cabinet Ministers and Commander-in-Chief.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span></p>
+
+<p>2. The <i>Spectabiles</i>, whose rank was not unlike
+that of our Privy Councillors, and who included
+most of the governors of provinces and military
+officers of rank.</p>
+
+<p>3. The <i>Clarissimi</i>. This title was given to all
+Senators, and was also shared by some of the
+governors of provinces of inferior rank, and subordinate
+commissioned officers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Notitia.</i></div>
+
+<p>The various degrees and orders of this great
+official hierarchy were accurately described in a
+treatise called the <i>Notitia Utriusque Imperii</i>, which,
+there is some reason to think, was written up by
+each Emperor afresh on his accession to the throne.
+This document is illustrated by somewhat grotesque
+pictures, emblematic of the contents of the various
+chapters, which may have been drawn by the unskilful
+fingers of the Imperial scribe. The copies of
+the <i>Notitia</i> which we possess describe the state of
+things existing about the beginning of the fifth
+century, and bring before us in a wonderful manner
+the various and skilfully contrived channels by
+which, in theory at least, the great Imperial power
+flowed down to, and was brought in contact with,
+the meanest of its subjects. The first chapter
+enumerates all the chief officers of the Eastern
+Empire. The second takes up the office of the
+<span class="smcap">Praetorian Prefect</span>, greatest of all the Illustres,
+a man who, after his office had undergone great
+mutations, had at length become, so to speak, the
+Grand Vizier of the Emperor, his <i>alter ego</i> and
+vicegerent, the official who took as much as possible
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>of the drudgery of ruling off the shoulders of a
+monarch, who, if ill-disposed, wanted to take his
+fill of luxury and sensual enjoyment, or if earnest to
+perform the duties of his station, was generally busy
+on the frontier, warring with the barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>Though the scheme of Diocletian for ‘adoptive
+succession, and partnership’ had broken down, his
+skilful division of the vast spaces of the Empire still
+endured, and each one of the four Prefectures
+founded by him was still under the rule of its own
+special Praetorian Prefect. This second chapter,
+then, of the <i>Notitia</i> describes the various provincial
+governors, who are, in its phrase, ‘under the disposition’
+of the Illustrious Praetorian Prefect of
+the East. Then follows an enumeration of the
+official staff—the registrars, the shorthand-writers,
+the process-servers, the beadles, the gaolers who
+were employed in the court of the Praetorian Prefect,
+himself not merely a great Minister of State,
+but also the highest Judge of Appeal, Premier, and
+Lord Chancellor in one.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Magister Militiae.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Probable size of the Imperial army.</i></div>
+
+<p>Another chapter of the <i>Notitia</i> gives the emblems
+of the dignity of the Illustrious <span class="smcap">Master of the
+Soldiery</span> in the East, and enumerates the various
+legions which were under his disposition. And
+here we are brought face to face with the interesting
+question, What was the size of the Roman army
+at the time when its greatest struggle with the barbarians
+began? Unfortunately the <i>Notitia</i>, though
+it gives us much detailed information as to the
+disposition of various bodies of infantry and cavalry,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>does not enable us to give a definite answer to this
+question; and unfortunately also an impression has
+been produced, one can hardly tell how, that by
+this time the Legion, the well-known unit of computation
+in the Roman army, had been formally
+reduced from its old strength of 6100 men to about
+1000. Of course this suggestion throws all calculations
+as to the size of the army, derived from
+the number of legions contained in it, into confusion.
+But as no proof of this formal reduction of
+the legion has yet been offered, I prefer to take
+it at its old valuation: and so doing, I come to
+the conclusion that the Roman army at the end
+of the fourth century consisted on paper of at least
+950,000 men&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>&#x2060;. To deduce from this its actual
+effective strength can be only a matter of conjecture;
+but my conjecture would be that fully one-half
+of the above number, or 475,000 men, were
+at that time serving under the banners of the
+Empire&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi.</i></div>
+
+<p>If I am not wearying you, we will turn over a
+few more pages of this wonderful handbook, which
+I have often in my own mind compared to a <i>Whitaker’s
+Almanack</i> and an <i>Army List</i> for the fifth
+century after Christ, bound up together. Even that
+comparison hardly does justice to the <i>Notitia</i>. I
+doubt if we have any book which in our own
+country shows so clearly and so concisely the relations
+of the various departments of our State to
+one another (for instance, of the Exchequer to the
+Treasury, or of the Privy Council to the Poor Law
+Board) as this treatise shows the functions of the
+great officers of the Roman State and the classes
+of civil servants over whom they bore sway. After
+the Master of the Soldiery, that is, the Commander-in-Chief,
+we come to the Illustrious Grand Chamberlain,
+or, as he was called in the high-flown language
+of the Court, the <span class="smcap">Superintendent of the Sacred
+Cubicle</span>. Our MSS. of the <i>Notitia</i> are defective
+in the chapters relating to this magnificent personage,
+but we know from other sources that he ruled
+over an army of pages, scullions, keepers of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>wardrobe, grooms of the bedchamber, and the like,
+and that the thirty gleaming <i>Silentiarii</i> who watched
+outside the purple veil took their orders from him.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Magister Officiorum</i>.</div>
+
+<p>The Illustrious <span class="smcap">Master of the Offices</span> is next
+described. In a quaint picture are represented the
+emblems of his rank, a table with the likeness of the
+Emperor standing upon it, and underneath shields,
+spears, greaves and helmets. We learn from the text
+that the arsenals of the Empire, the Postal Service,
+the four great bureaux&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> which were responsible for
+the Imperial correspondence and for receiving and
+answering petitions, the swarm of King’s Messengers
+(as they would now be called) or <i>Agentes in Rebus</i>,
+who rode up and down through the provinces, executing
+the orders of the Sovereign, were all under
+the disposition of this hard-worked and useful
+functionary.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Quaestor.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Illustrious <span class="smcap">Quaestor</span> was responsible for the
+preparation of the Emperor’s Edicts, and seems to
+have shared with the Master of the Offices the duty
+of replying to the humble petitions of his subjects.
+A bundle of these petitions and a box, which looks
+like a pillar post-office, inscribed ‘Leges Salutares,’
+appear on his page of the <i>Notitia</i> among the emblems
+of the Quaestor’s dignity.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Comes Sacrarum Largitionum.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Comes Privatarum Rerum.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Illustrious <span class="smcap">Count of the Sacred Largesses</span>
+and <span class="smcap">Count of the Private Domains</span> were the two
+great financial ministers of the State. Theoretically
+the first might have been expected to discharge only
+the duties of a Grand Almoner, in supervising the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>Imperial Charities. Practically, however, he had to
+superintend the collection of revenue from Illyrian
+silver mines and Egyptian corn-fields, from the
+manufacturers of linen, and the traders in salt.
+The Count of the Private Domains similarly superintended
+the vast estates belonging to the Crown in
+the various provinces of the Empire, defended them
+from squatters, urged the claims of his sovereign to
+the land of a subject dying without natural heirs,
+and received the reports of the stud-masters who
+watched over the troops of horses reared for the
+Emperor in the plains of Thrace and Cappadocia.
+The pictures denoting the functions of these two
+officers are nearly alike, both representing money-chests,
+sacks fat with gold and silver, and great
+bowls filled with round masses of bullion.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Merits and defects of the Imperial Bureaucracy.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such is a very brief outline of the system of
+civil and military administration as arranged by
+Diocletian and Constantine. This Bureaucracy (I
+know no pure English word which expresses the
+idea) carried on the government of the Eastern
+Empire for more than a thousand years. It had
+great faults—it was grasping, repressive, too often
+corrupt. At the beginning of the fifth century, if
+we may believe a poet of the Opposition&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>&#x2060;, an
+Eunuch, who by Imperial favour had climbed up
+into the high place of Praetorian Prefect, dared
+to open an auction mart in his private chamber
+for the actual sale of provincial governorships to
+the highest bidder. And even where there was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>not positive corruption, there can be little doubt
+that the rule of the Byzantine officials was generally
+impoverishing and exhausting to the provinces,
+paying but little heed to their just complaints,
+and bent on screwing out of them the uttermost
+farthing for the Emperor, if not for the officials’
+own private benefit. Still the officialism of the
+Empire had some great merits, without which it
+could never have subsisted so long as it did. The
+regular gradation of offices, the scientific division
+of powers, the career opened by the civil service
+to intellect, irrespective of noble birth or warlike
+prowess—all these things made of the administrative
+hierarchy of the Roman Empire a great engine
+of civilisation in those dim mediaeval centuries,
+and one which contrasted favourably in many respects
+with the rough barbaric forces that were
+everywhere else struggling for supremacy. If the
+student wishes to know how it was that the Empire
+of Constantine, notwithstanding all its degeneracy,
+lasted on in the East for 1120 years, let him
+study that curious and interesting document, the
+<i>Notitia Imperii</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Social condition of the Empire.</i></div>
+
+<p>Passing from the political, I will make a few
+remarks on the social state of the Empire in the
+fourth century after Christ. Our information on
+this subject is very imperfect. We have no authors
+who, like the comedians of Athens, or like Horace
+and Juvenal in Rome, enable us to reconstruct a
+picture of the manners and customs of those far-off
+times, almost as vivid as is furnished by the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>Miss Austens and the Anthony Trollopes of the
+nineteenth century. Still we have something. Ammianus
+Marcellinus, the great historian of Julian
+and Valentinian, possessed the eye and hand of a
+satirist; and St. Jerome, even in denouncing the
+vices of fashionable society in Rome, brings us into
+nearer acquaintance with its good as well as its evil
+qualities.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Division between classes.</i></div>
+
+<p>Taking a broad survey, we may say that the
+characteristic of Roman social life in the later
+Empire, was the gulf (a far wider and more bridgeless
+gulf than exists in our own day) between the
+very rich and the very poor. The Roman did not
+take naturally either to manufacturing or to retail
+shop-keeping. He was (perhaps I should rather
+say, he had been) essentially a warrior. The rich
+Roman was still lawyer, civil servant, money-lender,
+and land owner. The poor Roman was tiller of the
+soil—often under very hard conditions—or else
+‘loafer’ (no other word will express my meaning)
+in the cities. What was true of the dweller in Rome
+was true also to some extent of the Romanised
+population of the provinces. Now, if we consider
+what these statements amount to, and if we consider
+also the invariable influence of slavery in crushing
+out the better class of free artisans, we shall see that
+we have here a society from which the middle class
+and the more independent portion of the lower class
+are perpetually tending to disappear; in other words,
+a society composed of the very rich and of the
+<i>employés</i> of the State at one end, and of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>proletariat&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> at the other, with only weak and insufficient
+padding between.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Roman fortunes.</i></div>
+
+<p>We have some interesting information as to the
+fortunes of wealthy Romans about the year 420, after
+the distress caused by the invasion of the barbarians
+had begun. In the first families in Rome it was not
+unusual for the master of the household to have an
+income of £160,000 a year, besides the produce of vineyards
+and corn-lands, which was worth quite £50,000
+more&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>&#x2060;. Wealthy families of the second class were
+worth from £40,000 to £60,000 a year. A Senator
+named Probus, when his son was made Praetor
+about 423, spent £48,000 on the shows which it was
+still customary for that functionary to exhibit to the
+people. Some fifteen years before, ere Rome had yet
+been taken by the barbarians, Symmachus the orator,
+a man who was deemed to possess only a moderate
+fortune, had spent £80,000 on similar exhibitions;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>while Maximus, who was considered one of the very
+rich citizens of Rome, lavished £160,000 upon the
+festivities, which, notwithstanding this prodigious
+expenditure, only lasted seven days. At this time
+the palace of every Roman nobleman had spacious
+baths, forum, hippodrome, fountains, temples (or
+churches) within its enclosure, so that a stranger
+visiting Rome cried out with enthusiasm</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Every house is a town, Rome holds a myriad of cities.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>St. Jerome tells us that the devout lady Paula,
+who claimed descent on the paternal side from
+Agamemnon, and on the maternal from the Scipios,
+was possessed of vast wealth, and that the whole
+city of Nicopolis (founded by Augustus to commemorate
+the battle of Actium) belonged to her
+alone.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Habits of wealthy Romans.</i></div>
+
+<p>The men who owned these enormous fortunes
+seemed to Ammianus to be for the most part cold-hearted
+and effeminate dandies, unworthy of the
+great name of Rome, whose foremost citizens they
+were. A lofty chariot would be one man’s sign of
+distinction, another covered himself with a multitude
+of cloaks of finest silken texture, each one fastened
+round his neck by a jewelled clasp, and perpetually
+wriggled his body about or waved his hand in order
+to call the attention of the bystanders to the gay
+fringes of his robe or the figures of animals embroidered
+upon it in divers colours of needle-work.
+Others strutted along the street followed by a whole
+army of retainers, and when they entered the public
+baths attended by at least fifty slaves, at once began
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>to shout out in a voice that was meant to strike awe
+into all humbler visitors, ‘Where are my people?’
+A contemptuous toss of the head was all that they
+vouchsafed to an acquaintance; to the fawning
+flatterer who was hungering for their smile they
+would contemptuously offer a hand or a knee to
+kiss. But all this affectation of aristocratic <i>hauteur</i>
+vanished when some woman of doubtful reputation
+drew near, or when news was brought to them of
+the arrival of some fresh horses or charioteers of
+extraordinary skill. The banquet was to these men
+a time of dull and solemn sensuality. When the
+panting slave placed on the table a fish or a turkey
+of unusual size, they would send for the scales and
+order it to be weighed, and then one of the crowd of
+hungry secretaries standing by would be called upon
+to record the prodigy on his tablets. Beyond this
+kind of employment for the pen, their ideas either of
+literature or of science hardly soared.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The poorer citizens of Rome.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Bread distribution.</i></div>
+
+<p>Thus empty and frivolous appeared to a contemporary
+satirist the lives of the Roman nobility.
+Of the lives of the poorer citizens he gives us fewer
+details, but we can see that for them as for their
+ancestors the interest of life was summed up in three
+words ‘<i>Panem et Circenses</i>’—bread and circus-shows.
+By a well-understood bargain between the Roman
+mob and the Roman Emperor—a bargain which
+lasted through all the centuries from Julius to Augustulus—he
+was bound to provide them with at least
+food enough to keep them from starving, and with a
+proper amount of excitement in the form of games,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>chariot races, and fights of gladiators and wild
+beasts; and if he failed in this, the first duty of a
+ruler, his diadem and his life were both forfeit.
+The elaborate provisions of the Theodosian code
+enable us to understand how the duty of feeding the
+mob was performed. We see the householders of
+Rome seated on broad flights of stairs throughout
+the fourteen regions of the City, and receiving from
+the slaves who obeyed the orders of the Superintendent
+of Supply (<i>Praefectus Annonae</i>) their loaves
+of fine wheaten flour, each weighing about a pound
+and a half&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>&#x2060;, and in addition, a certain quantity
+of oil.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Games.</i></div>
+
+<p>And then as to the games. The history of Ammianus
+and the letters of Cassiodorus show us these
+same unemployed citizens flocking to the stately
+Colosseum, or the spacious Hippodrome, and shouting
+themselves hoarse with the name of some
+favourite gladiator or charioteer. The chariot races
+especially, stirred the people to a frenzy of excitement,
+surpassing that of a contested election or
+an Irish faction-fight. The two colours, blue and
+green, flaunted by one set of charioteers or the
+other, stirred the citizens both of Rome and Constantinople
+to the very madness of triumph or
+disappointment. ‘The green charioteer flashes by:
+part of the people is in despair. The blue gets
+ahead: a larger part of the city is in misery. They
+cheer frantically when they have gained nothing:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>they are cut to the heart when they have received
+no loss: and they plunge with as much eagerness
+into these empty contests as if the whole welfare of
+the imperilled fatherland was at stake&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>&#x2060;.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Slave-system.</i></div>
+
+<p>In such a round of ignoble excitements, in such
+an attitude of dishonourable dependence on the
+feeding power of the State—pauperism disguised
+under high-sounding names—the mob of Rome and
+of Constantinople, apparently also of Antioch and
+Alexandria, spent their lazy lives. Meanwhile the
+agricultural population and the inhabitants of the
+smaller provincial towns were daily sinking lower
+into the gulf of hopeless poverty, toiling, yet scarce
+able with all their labour to keep famine from their
+doors. At the base of the social pyramid were of
+course to be found the Slaves, those unhappy beings
+who, shut up at night in the huge and gloomy <i>ergastula</i>
+(slave-barracks), worked all day under the hot
+Italian sun, cultivating the land of some wealthy
+master, unknown, unseen, only represented by a
+hard, relentless <i>villicus</i> (steward), himself a slave,
+but delighting to make the more miserable creatures
+under him feel his power. These were the kind of
+establishments which, a hundred years or more
+before the Republic fell, had replaced the happy
+home-steads of the Latin or Sabine farmer: and it
+was the sight of this spreading plague-spot of servile
+agriculture which in the first century of the Christian
+era forced from Pliny the well-known cry of
+lamentation, ‘Large estates have been the ruin of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>Italy and are now causing the ruin of the provinces&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>&#x2060;.’
+Yet perhaps in the fifth century the slave
+was not the most miserable of the rural inhabitants.
+Christianity had already introduced some betterment
+into his condition. The <i>ergastulum</i> was prohibited
+by law, if we may not think that it had entirely disappeared
+in fact: and decrees were beginning to be
+issued, earnestly protesting against that breaking up
+of families which is one of the most cruel characteristics
+of predial slavery&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>&#x2060;. And at any rate the
+slave, in all ordinary circumstances, was safe from
+death by starvation, a security which was not always
+enjoyed by his social superiors.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Coloni.</i></div>
+
+<p>Next above the slave, and often hardly to be distinguished
+from him, was the <i>colonus</i> or serf, a man
+over whom his lord had no power of life and death,
+but who was bound—as were his children after
+him—to cultivate a particular piece of ground for
+the owner, at a rent which seems to have been
+practically unchanged from generation to generation.
+He had therefore no power of changing his condition
+nor of choosing a better landlord, but on the
+other hand he had practically a kind of tenant-right
+which he transmitted, with the corresponding
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>liability, to his children. This class of compulsory
+cultivators seems to have sprung out of freeholders
+who were weighed down by hopeless debt, and who
+by process of law became <i>coloni</i> of their creditors&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>&#x2060;;
+but it was probably enormously increased during
+the troubles of the third and fourth centuries, when
+men finding freedom with starvation a burden too
+heavy to be borne, voluntarily lowered their condition,
+and becoming <i>coloni</i> accepted the helping but
+degrading hand of a <i>dominus</i>. In times of peace and
+plenty the condition of a <i>colonus</i>, notwithstanding
+his bounded horizon and his depressing round of
+unvarying toil, was perhaps not altogether to be
+pitied: but war, famine, and pestilence must have
+terribly reduced his narrow margin of profit.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Curiales.</i></div>
+
+<p>Of all classes of the community, however, none
+seem to me so truly to be commiserated as the
+<i>curiales</i>, the vestrymen and town-councillors of the
+provinces. These were the descendants of the men
+by whom the local self-government of the Empire
+had formerly been carried on, the representatives of
+a once flourishing and happy middle class. Their
+ancestors had been men of importance in their little
+world, and the letters D E C (for Decurio, or town-councillor)
+carved on their tombs had shown their
+right to a coveted dignity. But as they bore rule
+in their little commonwealth, so they were responsible
+for its contributions to the public revenue; and
+as the Empire grew older, as it became divided, as
+there came to be three or four Imperial Courts to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>support instead of one, and as heavier sums had to
+be paid to buy off or to fight off the barbarians, so
+the pressure of the tax-gatherer became more severe,
+while the privileges of the town-councillor became
+more shadowy. At last the truth was openly confessed:
+the <i>curialis</i> was a mere bond-slave of the
+Empire, bound to fulfil his ‘curial obligations,’ that
+is, to bear an ever-increasing burden of local rates
+and imperial taxes, transmitting this sad necessity to
+his children, compelled if the land next to him fell
+out of cultivation to take it up and cultivate it for the
+benefit of the Imperial Treasury, forbidden to become
+a priest or even a slave, lest by either process he
+might escape from his bondage to the <i>curia</i>. One or
+two ways of escape from this bitter servitude were
+indeed left open, but they were narrow, thorny, and
+difficult. Practically the chief liberator of the <i>curialis</i>
+and his kindest friend was Death.</p>
+
+<p>The sketch which I have thus offered you of the
+social condition of the Empire in the fourth century
+is certainly a gloomy one. Like all such sketches it
+can only be approximately true. Doubtless there
+were at Rome many nobles unlike the effeminate
+dandies whom Ammianus has described to us:
+doubtless there was in the provinces many a cultivator
+of the soil, whether <i>colonus</i> or <i>curialis</i>, who
+glided happily enough through life, not crushed by
+the burdens and the despairs which seem to us so
+terrible. Yes: though I cannot accept the proposition
+that the sum of human happiness is a constant
+quantity throughout the centuries, I doubt not that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>in the saddest periods of the history of the world
+there has been more individual happiness, and in the
+happiest of such periods more individual suffering,
+than the historian pourtrays to us. But upon the
+whole we may confidently say that the Roman World,
+at the time when the barbarian invasion began in
+earnest, was not happy or flourishing. Large tracts
+of land within the <i>Limes Imperii</i> were going out of
+cultivation, population both in Italy and the provinces
+was dwindling, and I think Hope was unusually
+absent from the hearts and minds of men. In short,
+the Empire was sinking under the weight of its
+official administration, even as I fear that after
+ages will see that many fair states of Europe are now
+sinking under the weight of the terrible armaments
+with which mutual suspicion has led them to array
+themselves.</p>
+
+<h3>§ 2. <span class="smcap">The Teuton.</span></h3>
+
+<p>From the highly-developed life of the Empire,
+with its signs of exhaustion and decay, we turn
+to that of our German forefathers and their
+kindred—a life rough, untrained, undisciplined,
+but already utterly different from that of mere
+savages, and bearing within it the seeds of many
+noble institutions. The German peoples (to speak
+of them in the language of Rome), the <i>Deutsche</i>
+(as they have in more recent times called themselves),
+or the Teutonic&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> race (which is the term
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>now generally used in contrast to Celts and
+Slaves), occupied, broadly speaking, the territory
+from the Rhine to the Danube, and along the
+northern shore of the Danube to the Black
+Sea. There were settlements, however, of the
+Teutons on the west of the Rhine, and in the
+east of Europe Sclavonic nations were mingled
+with Teutons in a confusion which it is now impossible
+to disentangle. Of their ethnological relations,
+however, I shall have a little more to
+say in my next lecture. At present my object
+is to give a slight sketch of the inner life of
+these Teutonic peoples, in its social and political
+aspects.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Germans at the end of the first century after Christ
+not a nomadic people.</i></div>
+
+<p>The first detailed information that we possess
+as to the customs of the Germans is given us by
+Julius Caesar, who describes the state of things
+which prevailed about 55 years before Christ.
+Our next and by far our fullest information comes
+from Tacitus, who wrote his priceless monograph,
+the <i>Germania</i>, in 98 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, that is, about a century
+and a half after Caesar. During that interval it
+is clear that an important change had come over
+the habits of the Germans. From being a pastoral
+people, living chiefly on milk and cheese and the
+flesh of their cattle, they had become, to a large
+extent, tillers of the soil. They still kept their
+flocks and herds, and wealth among them was
+still measured chiefly by these possessions; but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>bread was now a staple article of food, and perhaps
+that upon which the slaves and the poorer
+freemen chiefly subsisted. This change in diet
+involved a necessary change in the habits of the
+people. The shepherd and the herdsman are
+essentially wanderers; the varied needs of their
+dumb companions in winter and summer, make
+frequent change of abode not only easy but profitable,
+while the agriculturist of course must remain
+stationary to watch the growth of the corn
+which he has sown. It seems probable that
+Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, Tiberius’s victories in
+Switzerland and the Tyrol, and the strong restraining
+hand of Augustus upon all the tribes
+beyond the Rhine and the Danube, were partly
+the cause of this change in the habits of the Germans.
+Cooped within narrower limits, and no
+longer able to overrun at their pleasure the fair
+lands of Gaul and Pannonia, they betook themselves
+of necessity to a more careful cultivation of
+their restricted territory, and practised the arts of a
+rude husbandry—rude indeed, but incomparably less
+wasteful of the earth’s resources than the nomadic
+life of the grazier and the sheep-master. In its
+turn this change in their habits reacted on their
+character. It made the maintenance of peace between
+them and the Empire possible for two or three
+generations at a time, and it so far fixed the bounds
+of the habitations of the Germanic peoples themselves,
+that the map of Germany which is drawn
+to illustrate the text of Tacitus will serve, without
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>many changes, for the distribution of the tribes in
+the time of Constantine.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>A German village-settlement.</i></div>
+
+<p>Let us try to understand what the life of these
+German farmers looked like in a time of peace during
+the second and third centuries of the Christian era.
+Their settlements, like those of a Canadian backwoodsman,
+were for the most part clearings in the
+midst of ‘the forest primeval.’ Here, then, with a
+girdle of woodland round them, was planted the
+cluster of scattered houses which made up the village.
+The Romans called it a <i>vicus</i>, the modern
+Germans call it a <i>dorf</i> (a word akin to our own <i>thorp</i>);
+our Saxon and Anglian ancestors called it sometimes
+a <i>ton</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> (town), sometimes a <i>ham</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>&#x2060;;
+    while their
+Danish invaders gave to the same kind of settlement
+the name of a <i>by</i> or a <i>wick</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>&#x2060;. The houses in the
+German village were built of timber, and if Tacitus
+is correct in saying that tiles were unknown among
+them, we must, I suppose, conclude that the straw
+thatches which are still common in rural England
+were the roofs chiefly used by our German ancestors.
+One feature of a German village which struck the
+eye of a Roman observer, and in which it probably
+differed even from a Celtic town, was that there were
+in it no rows of contiguous houses. Each dwelling,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>whether large or small, stood surrounded by its own
+plot of ground, and thus fires were less dangerous
+than where the lines of buildings were continuous.
+The description of such a <i>vicus</i> given by Tacitus
+reminds one of a Swiss village, say Meyringen,
+Grindelwald, or Altdorf, if we can imagine all the
+changes which have been wrought therein by the
+tide of summer tourists done away. And the great
+belt of woodland which seems always to have surrounded
+the German <i>vicus</i>, and which was to a
+certain extent the common property of the villagers,
+who possessed rights of collecting fuel, and probably
+also of hunting game in these encircling forests,
+reminds me of several modern German villages
+which I have seen, but especially of Schwalbach,
+which is environed by just such a belt of trees,
+chiefly beech-trees. In this beautiful green girdle,
+which is from one to two miles in depth, the poor
+of the village are still employed during the winter in
+felling and carrying wood for the benefit of the
+<i>Gemeinde</i>, and the wages paid to them for this work
+seem to supply the place of what is called with us
+‘out-door relief.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Distinction of classes in a German village.</i></div>
+
+<p>In these little sequestered villages the bulk of the
+German warriors had their homes. There was a
+distinction of classes among them. Then, as now,
+the German looked upon noble birth with reverence,
+and probably in every village there were at least one
+or two heads of families called noble, and believed
+to be sprung in far-distant ages from the seed of
+gods. But the largest and most important class was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>that of the men, free but not noble&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>&#x2060;, who took part
+in all public assemblies, and who formed the bone
+and muscle of the national army, but who, though
+proud and independent, did not look upon themselves
+as eligible for any of the highest places in the
+State. Among these, however, there were all sorts
+of gradations of rank, depending partly on personal
+qualities, but largely also on their relative wealth.
+The chief outward sign of this wealth was cattle, so
+much so that the earliest translator of the New
+Testament into a Teutonic tongue coined a word
+equivalent to ‘cattle-hoarder&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>&#x2060;,’ when he wished to
+warn his readers against the ‘mammon of unrighteousness.’
+But slaves also were possessed, probably in
+considerable numbers, by wealthy German villagers,
+though they were employed almost entirely in the
+labour of the farm and the pasture, all domestic work
+being as a rule performed by the female members
+of even the rich German family. Half-naked, and
+far from clean, the children of the master and of the
+slave sprawled about together on the floor of either
+home, until the years of manhood were reached,
+when it was deemed fitting that some distinctive dress
+should show the difference of their rank. But it was
+in these smoky huts, on these dirty floors, and
+doubtless also in many a long day’s chase along
+with the slave-boys in the encircling forest, that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>the fair limbs of the young German warriors grew
+to that size and that sinewy stateliness which, as
+Tacitus admits, were the admiration and the terror
+of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Land-system of the Germans.</i></div>
+
+<p>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>&#x2060;The agriculture of these Teutonic tribes was conducted
+in a manner which necessarily kept it in a
+backward and primitive state. Apparently the Germans
+had learnt the lesson that frequent grain-crops
+exhaust the fertility of the soil. Anything like a
+scientific system of manuring, in order to repair that
+exhausted fertility, was of course yet undiscovered;
+but a rude provision for fallows seems to have been
+generally made. Periodically, the whole population
+of the village went forth into the adjacent country
+and decided upon the portion of pasture or moorland
+which was to be broken up by the plough in order to
+replace the portion of arable land which had earned
+the right to repose. The new corn-land thus created
+was divided among the villagers, not equally, but
+according to their rank and wealth, chiefly because
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>rank and wealth implied a proportionate power of
+cultivation&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>&#x2060;. While the poor freeman, who was
+only just above the rank of a slave, could bring only
+his own arms and those of his sons to till the little
+patch of ground which was allotted to him, his
+wealthy neighbour, who had slaves and horses and
+herds in abundance, could cultivate, and therefore
+might insist upon having allotted to him, a much
+larger part of the new corn-land. Thus, by this
+arrangement, as by so many of those which belong
+to a more complicated civilisation, ‘to him that had,
+more was given, so that he had abundance.’ After
+all, every German village had still so much land
+at its disposal, that few heartburnings seem to have
+been caused on the score of too scanty allotment&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>&#x2060;.
+And in order to prevent the complaint that one
+villager received a more fertile or a sunnier portion
+than another, the lots periodically&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>&#x2060;, perhaps even
+annually, changed hands, though still on the same
+principle of unequal division.</p>
+
+<p>At first sight, such a system as this appears communistic,
+but on reflexion we see that the right of
+property, and the inequalities which flow from the
+acknowledgment of that right, are fully recognised
+by it. Only I think we must admit—and here the
+words both of Caesar&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and Tacitus seem to justify
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>our conclusion—that there was in the minds of the
+rough German politicians of the first century before
+and the first century after Christ, a conviction, or
+perhaps rather an instinct, that the land, though still
+cheap and not much more an object of desire than
+water or air, was, like water and air, essential to the
+nation’s life; and that, though cottages and the surrounding
+gardens were the subject of absolute property,
+and descended from father to son without
+question, it was safer for the community by frequent
+changes to prevent the right of any one of its members
+to a given space of corn-land or meadow from
+becoming firm and immovable.</p>
+
+<p>How these open fields were probably divided into
+strips, or ‘yard-lands’; how the villagers sometimes
+helped one another in the necessary ploughing; how
+some traces of this peculiar kind of joint occupation
+existed through the Middle Ages, and were still
+manifest in our own country even in the early
+part of this century, has been set forth with
+much fulness of detail by my friend Mr. Seebohm,
+in his interesting book, <i>The English Village Community</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Indolence of the Germans.</i></div>
+
+<p>Whatever other advantages this system might possess,
+it was not likely to encourage highly-developed
+agriculture. But indeed, from the account given by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>Tacitus, which is generally confirmed by later historians,
+it is clear that the German freemen, though
+far from being the squalid savages that they have
+been sometimes represented, were not industrious
+tillers of the soil. War, the chase, the sword-dance,
+and the throw of the dice-box were their chief excitements,
+and when they were not excited they were
+torpid and lethargic. Long and heavy potations,
+sometimes continued for a day and night together,
+sometimes interrupted by a bloody brawl, were followed
+by equally long and heavy slumbers. Whether
+they went to the banquet or to market they always
+wore arms, a sure sign of a low state of civilisation;
+and the gravest affairs were all discussed amid
+copious draughts of beer, or, if the disputants dwelt
+near the Rhine or the Danube, of wine from the
+land of the Romans. In short, while we can trace
+in the Teuton of the first Christian centuries some
+noble qualities—truth, courage, chastity—we also
+discover the marks of some deep inbred vices, which
+beset him till this day, especially drunkenness and
+the love of gambling; and we do <i>not</i> find even the
+germs of that capacity for steady and continuous
+toil which, since they became Christian and civilised,
+has been the glory of the German, the Anglo-Saxon,
+and the Scandinavian.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>How the village community developed into the state.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such, then, in brief outline, seems to have been
+the ordinary life of a German village. The political
+institutions of the Teutonic races—which are what
+we are chiefly now concerned with—depended on
+the manner and extent of the consolidation of these
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>villages into larger and more powerful communities.
+If we go up to some high table-land we shall see
+little brooks and streams running off from it in
+all directions, some of which will perhaps eventually
+form part of a great and world-famous river, while
+others will find their way unnoticed to the sea. In
+studying the early history of the Germanic tribes, we
+stand on such a table-land. The future fortunes of
+Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Angles, Saxons,
+are involved in the village politics of these much-drinking,
+freely-fighting German boors; but there
+are also involved the obscure destinies of countless
+little tribes, whose uncouth names survive only in
+the pages of Tacitus or Jordanes, and are in fact
+forgotten by men.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Manifoldness of German political life.</i></div>
+
+<p>The characteristic of German polity, as much in
+the first century after Christ as in the sixteenth, as
+much in the time of Arminius as in that of Charles V,
+was its infinite diversity. There were tribes that
+knew no king, tribes that had kings with very limited
+powers, tribes that submitted to despotism—or something
+very like it—on the part of their kings, and
+tribes that even endured to have such authority over
+them exercised by a woman. And the chief—I will
+not say the only—cause of this diversity seems to
+have been the relative greatness or littleness of the
+clusters into which the village communities ultimately
+coalesced; and, closely connected herewith, the question
+whether the organism which was thus finally
+formed entertained widely extended schemes of aggression
+and foreign conquest, or whether it rested
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>content with the defence of its own narrow borders
+against an invading foe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Pagus, Gau, County or Canton.</i></div>
+
+<p>Apparently every German village, at the time which
+we are now considering, had so far coalesced with
+some of its neighbours as to form what the Romans
+called a <i>pagus</i>. The extent of these <i>pagi</i>, and the
+number of <i>vici</i> which united to form them, doubtless
+differed exceedingly, but as we find that in the time
+of Caesar&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> each Suevic <i>pagus</i> sent forth 1000 armed
+men, an equal number remaining at home to till the
+ground, we may perhaps assume that the whole
+population of a <i>pagus</i> generally consisted of about
+10,000 persons, and that about ten <i>vici</i>, more or less,
+contributed to its formation. The choice of a Teutonic
+word to represent the term <i>pagus</i>, which,
+though convenient, is foreign, has not been found
+easy. Modern German scholars have generally
+adopted the word <i>Gau</i>, which was extensively used
+in the Middle Ages, though it is admitted that this
+does not precisely correspond to the <i>pagus</i>, but was
+often of somewhat smaller extent. As an English
+equivalent, <i>county</i> or <i>shire</i> comes the nearest, though
+both of them suggest ideas of a somewhat later time&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>&#x2060;.
+Whether such a translation be scientifically accurate
+or not&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> there can be little doubt that the feeling of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>local patriotism which still animates a Devonshire
+man or a Shropshire man when he speaks of his
+county, represents, at least as well as any other
+modern equivalent, the bond which bound a German
+warrior to his <i>pagus</i>. But, upon the whole, the Swiss
+<i>canton</i>, both in extent and in the manner of its growth,
+namely, by the coalition of the inhabitants of several
+neighbouring valleys, seems to me the most fitting
+representative of the <i>pagus</i> of the <i>Germania</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Some German communities, perhaps, stopped in
+the process of consolidation at the canton, and never
+reached a further stage. They may have had traditions,
+and even religious rites, which kept alive the
+remembrance that they formed part of a larger tribe,
+that they were Suevi, or Mattiaci, or Chauci; but as
+far as political organisation went they were willing
+to be a <i>pagus</i> and nothing more. If so, we may
+probably affirm that the tribes which contained many
+of these self-isolated cantons retained what has been
+called their ‘republican’ organisation, engaged but
+little in offensive war, were feeble in their resistance
+to Rome, and have left but little mark in history.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Several <span class="antiqua">Pagi</span> might coalesce into a <span class="antiqua">Civitas</span>.</i></div>
+
+<p>The first step towards national existence on a
+larger scale was taken when many <i>pagi</i>, bound
+together for the most part by the traditions of a
+common origin, organised themselves into what the
+Romans called a <i>civitas</i>, and in doing so generally,
+perhaps not always, elected for themselves a King.
+I do not think it is possible to find a term which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>exactly represents the stage of development which
+was thus reached, but the Saxon and Anglian kingdoms
+which were set up in our own land—Wessex,
+Mercia, Northumbria—will convey the true idea of
+it to our minds better than an elaborate description.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Kingship and tendency towards unification went together.</i></div>
+
+<p>Kingship and a tendency towards unification went
+hand in hand in the history of the German races.
+And not in that history alone: we may safely
+illustrate the tendency of the kingly office among
+the Germans by what we read in the Old Testament
+of the election of Saul. The Twelve Tribes of
+Israel, conscious that they were losing national
+unity and were in danger of being absorbed by the
+great monarchies on their borders, elected Saul to
+be their king, and his very first act of kingship
+was the deliverance of the outlying settlement of
+Jabesh-gilead from the destruction with which it was
+threatened by Nahash, King of the Ammonites. In
+our own days we have seen the aspirations of the
+Germans after national unity, aspirations which
+seemed for centuries doomed to hopeless failure,
+at length successful; and the visible token of their
+success and of that victory over their foes which unity
+made possible, was the crowning of the Emperor
+William by a host of kings, dukes and generals&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>&#x2060;,
+in the palace of Versailles. We must not press the
+conclusion too far, since the history both of Rome and
+of the United States of America shows that a Republic
+can found a great dominion and defend the oneness
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>of a nation: but for the German peoples, properly
+so called, I think we may safely say Monarchy has
+meant Unity, and Unity has meant Monarchy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Character of the kingly office among the Germans.</i></div>
+
+<p>Far other, however, than the languid despot upon
+the sanctity of whose presence-chamber we intruded
+in the beginning of this lecture, was the King of the
+Goths or the Alamanni. Whether himself the son
+of a king or not, it was necessary that he should be
+of noble birth&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>&#x2060;, and he had therefore probably been
+reared in a house, rude but somewhat larger than
+the ordinary freeman’s dwelling, built by the side of
+a fountain or near a sacred grove, at some little
+distance from the village settlement&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>&#x2060;. But his life had
+been passed in the active exercises of war and the
+chase: and before he was chosen king of a great and
+important <i>civitas</i> he had probably given some proof
+of valour and ability, to cause him to be singled out
+from the ranks of nobles, each of whom was a chief
+in his own canton. Even after his election as king,
+his power was by no means unlimited. He might
+not bind nor strike any one of the free German
+warriors under him. Both in council and in war he
+had so much authority as his gifts of intellect, of
+daring, or of strength enabled him to acquire and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>retain, and not much more&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>&#x2060;. And when thus elected
+he had no absolute right to transmit his crown to his
+first-born, nor indeed to any of his sons. Doubtless
+the eldest son of a recently deceased king, if himself
+a man of capacity and valour, had always a good
+chance of being chosen to succeed him, but that was
+all. Gradually as the nation and its royal race grew
+accustomed to one another, and especially when the
+kings of that race had often led the nation to victory,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>the feeling grew stronger and stronger that out of
+that race only the nation ought to choose its kings.
+Thus were the Amals looked upon as the natural
+kingly race of the Ostrogoths, the Merwings of the
+Franks, the Asdings of the Vandals. But still there
+was no strict hereditary right, and the nation on the
+death of its king exercised its power of choice often
+in utter defiance of the rule of primogeniture.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Meeting of the members of the Civitas.</i></div>
+
+<p>The choice of the ruler, the decision as to war
+or peace, the enactment of a few very simple laws,
+these formed the chief business of the assembly of
+the <i>civitas</i>, which was called probably by some name
+like our own Anglo-Saxon Folc-gemot or Folcs-thing.
+Tacitus gives us a concise but vivid picture
+of the proceedings of one of these national assemblies.
+The <i>gemots-men</i> indicated their deep-seated
+love of liberty by the unpunctuality of their
+attendance. Two days, and sometimes three, would
+elapse before a sufficient number had arrived to
+enable them to commence their proceedings. Then,
+when the crowd was in the humour for beginning,
+they sat down on the ground, all arrayed in their
+armour. The priests called for silence, and upon
+them rested the duty of maintaining order during
+the deliberations of the assembly&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>&#x2060;. Then the king
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>or chief whose age, or eloquence, or noble birth
+gave him the right of pre-audience, addressed the
+assembly, and afterwards each in his turn according
+to the same blended qualifications. All the speakers
+sought rather to persuade than to command. An
+unpopular proposal was drowned in murmurs of
+disapproval, while eagerly brandished lances testified
+the applause and the agreement of the assembly.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Judicial power of the popular assembly.</i></div>
+
+<p>In these assemblies an accusation might be brought
+against a man who was suspected of treason against
+the nation’s life, and if the charge were pushed home,
+a capital sentence was pronounced upon the offender.
+Betrayers and deserters were hanged from a tree; the
+mere coward and fugitive, the man whom our Saxon
+forefathers would have called a <i>nithing</i>, was plunged
+deep in mud and covered with a hurdle to prevent
+his struggling back to life—a mode of punishment
+which reminds one of some scenes in Dante’s <i>Inferno</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Election of the King.</i></div>
+
+<p>Probably, however, it was neither the legislative
+nor the judicial, but the elective aspect of these
+national councils which was the most important.
+The chiefs, or elders, or judges, or by whatever
+name they were called, the men whose business it
+was to administer a rude justice in the cantons and
+the villages, were chosen in the national council&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>&#x2060;.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>And the highest act of the nation’s great assize was
+performed when the chief who was to repel the
+eagles of Rome, to lead the people across the frozen
+Danube, or to swoop upon the wealthy plains of
+Gaul, was solemnly chosen king. The clashing arms
+testified the nation’s assent to his nomination. Six
+strong warriors slowly upheaved the shield on which
+stood the newly-chosen one, and shouts of ‘Thiudans!
+Thiudans&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>&#x2060;!’ proclaimed to the echoing hills
+that the nation had once more a king. Thus was
+he singled out from his fellows who was to conduct
+the people’s quarrel with the far-off, mysterious,
+Imperator of Rome.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_III">LECTURE III.<br>
+<span class="smcap">The Coming of the Huns.</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Having thus given a cursory glance at the political
+and social condition of the Roman Empire and
+its German neighbours in the fourth century after
+Christ, let us now even more briefly survey the
+ethnological aspect of the barbarian world on its
+northern frontier at the same time.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Celtic nations.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Slavonic nations.</i></div>
+
+<p>Of the three great groups into which the non-Latin
+nations of Europe are at this day divided,
+Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic, the Teutonic alone
+here claims our especial attention. The Celtic nationality
+had been beaten down in ten years of
+battle by Julius Caesar, and its last hope of offering
+a successful resistance to Rome vanished when
+Suetonius Paulinus crossed the straits of Menai
+and put the Druids to the sword in their hitherto inviolable
+island of Mona. The Slavonic group of
+nations, which now fills Russia and Poland, forms
+half the population of Austria and is founding new
+kingdoms and principalities in what was lately
+Turkey in Europe, had not then come fully on the
+stage of history. The vague term Sarmatians, used
+by Roman geographers, is probably the best indication
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>that we have of their presence in Europe, but
+few ethnological questions are harder than to define
+the ever-shifting boundary which separated them
+from their Teutonic neighbours. It is very possible
+that many of the barbarian hosts that warred on
+Rome may have consisted of Slavonic marauders
+led on by Teutonic chieftains: but just because the
+initiative at any rate belonged to the Teutons, and
+because the Slaves originated so few expeditions
+against the Empire, we may practically leave them
+out of the question and consider only the great
+Teutonic population which, all round the northern
+frontier of the Empire, from the mouth of the Rhine
+to the mouth of the Danube, faced the Masters of
+the Soldiery and their Legions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Tendency of the Teutonic nations to form confederacies.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Franks.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alamanni.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Goths.</i></div>
+
+<p>There had been a marked tendency during the
+third century after Christ in the barbarian nations
+to merge themselves into a few great confederacies,
+a tendency which possibly had something to do with
+the ill-success of the Roman arms during that period.
+A whole string of names of petty tribes on the lower
+Rhine, mentioned to us by Tacitus, disappears in
+order to form the nation of the <i>Franks</i>. In like
+manner the tribes which dwelt on the Main and the
+Neckar clustered together into the confederation of
+the <i>Alamanni</i>. On the Middle Danube the great
+nation of the Marcomanni, who once pressed Marcus
+Aurelius hard, disappeared, and no one nation of
+pre-eminent power arose in its place; but when we
+come towards the mouth of the Danube, to the
+countries which are now known as Roumania, Transylvania,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>and Bessarabia, we find them occupied by
+the great and powerful confederacy of the <i>Goths</i>.
+This race, of pure Teutonic origin, belonging to that
+which is called the Low-German family of peoples,
+and speaking a language much more akin to Lowland
+Scotch than to the modern German of Hanover,
+had migrated, probably in the second century of our
+era, from the district now known as East Prussia in
+the south-east corner of the Baltic. They had spread
+themselves along the northern shore of the Euxine,
+near the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester,
+and after a series of piratical expeditions by sea and
+marauding inroads by land upon the Eastern half of
+the Empire, had occupied without further opposition
+the Roman province of Dacia, constituted by Trajan
+in the early part of the second century. During the
+century before our narrative begins, they had been
+dwelling for the most part as friendly and peaceable
+neighbours of Rome. They had become gradually
+divided into two great groups of peoples, the Eastern
+and Western Goths, who eventually became known
+as the Ostrogoths and Visigoths.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Associations connected with the term Gothic.</i></div>
+
+<p>A hard and undeserved fate, as well as an unmerited
+glory, has come upon the possessors of the
+Gothic name. The glory is that of having given
+their name to the most solemn and impressive order
+of architecture that the world has ever seen. Men
+speak, and doubtless will ever continue to speak, of
+Gothic buildings, though the last traces of Gothic
+nationality had expired many centuries before a
+pointed arch was seen at Canterbury or Notre Dame.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>On the other hand the expression ‘What a Goth!’
+as indicative of rudeness and lack of culture, is constantly
+used by the descendants of men who were
+centuries behind the Goths in refinement and civilisation,
+and who do not know that ‘What a Frank!’
+or ‘What a Saxon!’ would be far nearer to historic
+truth. In point of fact, of all the Teutonic races
+none showed so early an appreciation of what was
+best in Roman civilisation as the Gothic, none
+showed a greater power of assimilating that civilisation,
+and none, had its career not been prematurely
+cut short, would more happily for Europe have
+blended the old with the new by uniting the culture
+and refinement of ‘Romania’ with the rough energy
+and freedom of ‘Barbaricum.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Visigoths and the Empire.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Circa 350-376.</i></div>
+
+<p>At the particular period which we have reached
+these remarks apply rather to the Visigoth than to
+the Ostrogoth. While the Ostrogoths, wandering
+wide over the vast plains of Southern Russia, were
+coming in contact with and subduing the dim Slavonic
+peoples of the interior, and thus building up
+for their great king, Hermanric, a vast but ill-consolidated
+empire which his flatterers—those of them
+at least who had some slight knowledge of classical
+history—compared to that of Alexander the Great,
+the Visigoths dwelling in Transylvania and Wallachia,
+and acknowledging perhaps in a general way
+the suzerainty of Hermanric, but under the especial
+rule of their own native chieftains who bore the
+subordinate title of <i>Judges</i>, were continually coming
+more and more under the influence of the Empire.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>Latin and Greek words were creeping into their
+language. The soldier talked of his pay as <i>mizdo</i>
+(evidently the same word as the Greek μισθός), and
+of his rations as <i>anno</i> (probably the Latin <i>annona</i>).
+The <i>alewa</i> displayed to the grateful husbandman the
+fatness of the olive-tree, and he carried home its
+produce in a <i>sakkus</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Ulfilas and the Gothic Bible.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>348-370.</i></div>
+
+<p>Not only words like these and a knowledge of the
+arts of civilised life, but more far-reaching thoughts,
+those which overleap the grave and bind together in
+one all the generations of the family of God, were
+vibrating through the Visigothic brain. Ulfilas, the
+great Apostle of the Goths, himself a Goth, but
+resident in early manhood at Constantinople, began
+his missionary career in 341, and continued it for
+forty years, labouring during all that time by his
+tongue and pen at the conversion of his countrymen
+to Christianity. As an instrument in this great work
+he translated the Bible into Gothic, only omitting,
+according to the well-known story, the books of
+Samuel and Kings, ‘inasmuch as they contain the
+story of the wars, and the Gothic race was already
+fond enough of war, and needed rather a bit to hold
+it back from battle, than any spur to urge it thereunto.’
+This Gothic Bible is a priceless possession
+for the philologist, being by far the earliest monument
+of any Teutonic language, and illustrating in a
+countless variety of ways, both the distant relationship
+which connects our family of languages with
+Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and the points at which
+the members of our own family, German, Danish,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>Dutch, English, have parted company one from
+another.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Persecution of Gothic Christians. 370-375.</i></div>
+
+<p>The success of Ulfilas in Christianising the Goths
+was so great that a persecution arose, under the
+stress of which many of his converts determined to
+leave their homes and seek shelter in the dominions
+of the great Christian Emperor. This happened
+about the year 348. The emigrants, with Ulfilas at
+their head, ‘a second Moses,’ as he was often styled
+by his contemporaries, crossed the Danube and
+founded a settlement in the country about Nicopolis,
+on the northern slopes of the Balkans. Here their
+descendants were still living after the lapse of nearly
+two centuries&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>&#x2060;, being known by the name of the
+Lesser Goths, ‘a numerous people, but poor and
+unwarlike, having no abundance of anything, save
+cattle of divers kinds, sheep and pastures and
+forests; having no wheat, though the soil is fertile
+in other crops. Vineyards they do not possess, but
+some of them as merchants buy wine from the neighbouring
+district: but most of them are nourished on
+milk.’</p>
+
+<p>Probably Ulfilas did not remain constantly with
+his Lesser Goths in Moesia, but often crossed the
+Danube into Dacia, to strengthen the faith of his
+remaining converts there, or to add to their number.
+Apparently a second persecution broke out (if, indeed,
+it had ever ceased to rage) about 370. From
+a fragment of a Gothic calendar we learn that the
+23rd October was dedicated ‘to the remembrance of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>many martyrs among the Gothic people, and of
+Frederic’ (doubtless one of the heroes of the persecution),
+and that the 29th was similarly dedicated ‘to
+the remembrance of the martyrs who remained, with
+Priest Vereka and Batvin, members of the Catholic
+Church, and were burned among the Gothic people.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Athanaric Judge of the Visigoths.</i></div>
+
+<p>The leader of the persecuting party at this time
+was Judge Athanaric, a stern, unbending Gothic
+chief, who would brook no compromise with Rome
+or Roman ways, who had sworn a terrible oath that
+he would never set foot on Roman soil, and who
+now, to the cruel utmost of his power, strove to prevent
+Odin and Thunnor from being driven out of
+the Home of Gods by the Nazarene, whose cross
+glittered upon the banners of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Fritigern.</i></div>
+
+<p>On the opposite side, as leader of that section of
+the Visigoths which favoured the Roman civilisation
+and the Christian religion, appears the gallant Fritigern,
+one of the most attractive figures whom Gothic
+history presents to us. The contention between
+him and the bigoted old Gothic party under Athanaric
+was so sharp that it seems to have broken out
+into actual war, in which, as one author&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> tells us,
+Fritigern, on formally announcing his conversion to
+Christianity, asked and received the help of the
+Roman Emperor against his rival.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Outlook in 375.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such, then, was the relation of ‘Barbaricum’
+towards ‘Romania’ about the year 375. Reading (as
+we are too apt to do) our knowledge of subsequent
+events into the history of that year, when the fourth
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>century of our era had reached its fourth quarter, it is
+easy to imagine the Roman Empire lying rich and defenceless,
+at the mercy of barbarian foes all round its
+border and all athirst to devour it. But such was certainly
+not the aspect which it then wore to its contemporaries.
+The keen eye of a statesman, if he were
+also possessed of fine ethical instincts, might undoubtedly
+perceive many dangerous symptoms of
+moral and spiritual decay, from which he might
+forebode its future downfall; but to the ordinary
+observer, especially to the ordinary barbarian observer,
+seldom had the great fabric of Roman civilisation
+seemed stronger or more imposing. Of anything
+like a combined attack of the barbarian hordes upon
+the Roman frontier, no barbarian dreamed. A petty
+raid here or there might perhaps be successfully
+executed, and might enable its perpetrator to return
+with some cattle from a few Moesian farms, or some
+bracelets and golden chains from a sacked Illyrian
+town. But this was the height of his ambition as
+Rome’s enemy. He would much rather be Rome’s
+friend: enter her service as a leader of <i>foederati</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>&#x2060;;
+mount guard in the ante-chamber of the Emperor;
+direct the arms of Rome against some hated rival
+chief; perhaps, even—supreme felicity—attain in
+his well-fed and corpulent old age to the overwhelming
+honour of a Roman consulship.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Sudden appearance of the Huns. 374.</i></div>
+
+<p>The appearance on the northern shore of the Sea
+of Azof of a horde of squalid savages from the steppes
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>of Central Asia, each riding a little pony as ugly and
+as unkempt as himself, changed the whole current of
+men’s thoughts, and was the first visible link in the
+chain which drew mediaeval Europe, the Europe of
+Charlemagne, Barbarossa, and Dante,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘forth from the abyss of things that were to be.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>These savages were the terrible Huns, of whose
+history I shall have to speak somewhat more in
+detail in my sixth lecture. For the present it will
+be enough to quote a chapter from the work of the
+Gothic historian Jordanes, in order to show how the
+Asiatic intruders were looked upon by the first European
+nation with whom they came in contact&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Description of the Huns by Jordanes.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘After no great interval of time the nations of the
+Huns, more cruel than Ferocity itself, flamed forth
+against the Goths. An unhallowed union between
+unclean spirits wandering through the wilderness,
+and certain Gothic women expelled [centuries before]
+for witchcraft from the tents of their countrymen,
+gave birth to this most ferocious people, which dwelt
+at first among the marshes—small, foul, and skinny,
+hardly human, but spoken of as men because they
+possessed something which distantly resembled human
+speech. This wild race formerly dwelt on the
+further shore of the Sea of Azof, and there practised
+no other labour than hunting, except that after they
+had grown into a great people they harried the neighbouring
+nations with constant robberies and frauds.
+Now when the huntsmen of this people were, according
+to their custom, pursuing the chase on the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>further shore of Azof, behold, upon a sudden, a female
+stag presented herself to their view, and stepping
+into the pool, first going forth and then stopping,
+seemed to offer herself as guide of their journey.
+Following her lead, therefore, the huntsmen passed
+over on foot through the Sea of Azof, which they had
+before thought to be as impassable as the ocean.
+Soon, too, when the Gothic shore loomed up before
+those unknown visitors, the stag disappeared. This,
+I trow, was done by those spirits to whom the Huns
+owed their origin, in order to spite the Gothic people.
+The huntsmen who had before thought that there
+was no other world beyond the Sea of Azof, were
+stricken with admiration of the Gothic land, the road
+to which, hitherto unknown, they deemed had been
+shown to them by the gods, and going back to their
+own people, persuaded them to hasten by the path
+which the stag had pointed out to them into the territory
+of the Goths. All whom they met on the way
+fell victims to their fury, and as soon as they had
+crossed that vast pool, five nations [whose uncouth
+names I need not transcribe] were swept away by
+that whirlwind of savage tribes. The Alans also,
+who were a match for them in war, but very unlike
+them in civilisation, in appearance, and in diet,
+were wearied out by them in incessant fighting, and
+at length subdued. For those whom they would
+perhaps never have conquered in fair fight they
+put to flight by the terribleness of their appearance,
+throwing the utmost possible hideousness into the
+expression of their faces, which were naturally of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>a frightful blackness, and resembled, if I may say so,
+a shapeless lump of dough rather than a face, having
+two black points in them instead of eyes. This
+scowling countenance reveals the boldness [?cruelty]
+of their hearts, who rage against their new-born
+offspring even on the first day of their birth,
+for all the male children’s cheeks are gashed by them
+with an iron tool, in order that before they begin to
+receive the nourishment of their mother’s milk they
+may learn to bear the pain of a wound. Hence
+their youth lacks the beauty, and their old age the
+dignity of a beard, because their faces, furrowed with
+iron, lose through scars the seasonable beauty of
+hair. They are little in stature, but nimble and clever
+in their movements, and especially ready in horsemanship:
+with broad shoulders, arms well adapted
+to the use of the bow, necks strong, and heads
+always held erect with pride. In short these people,
+wearing the shape of man, practise in their lives the
+ferocity of beasts.’</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Through the uncouth sentences of the half-educated
+Gothic historian the general character of
+the Hunnish invaders may be sufficiently discerned.
+They stood on a distinctly lower grade of civilisation
+than any of the Teutonic invaders of the Empire.
+The Goth, the Frank, the Alaman, the Vandal
+were barbarians indeed, but barbarians with some
+capacity—in the case of the Goth with an extraordinary
+capacity—for appreciating the advantages
+of civilisation. The Hun, fresh from his centuries of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>wandering over the high table-land of Tartary, was
+an utter, an irreclaimable savage. To compare them
+with some of the native races with which our own
+has recently come in contact, the Goth was like the
+Maori, the Hun like a stronger and more warlike
+Australian savage.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Huns were ‘Turanians,’ not Aryans.</i></div>
+
+<p>This social difference between the Hun and the
+Teuton corresponds to a deep ethnological chasm.
+Hitherto all the great struggles in which the European
+nations had been engaged (except the Punic
+wars) had been waged between members of the great
+Aryan family of nations. Persian, Greek, Italian,
+Celt, Teuton, however wide their divergences of religion,
+of culture, of intellectual development, were
+yet all children of the same family, some of whom, so
+to speak, had come of age, and entered into their inheritance,
+while others were still in a state of infancy
+and untaught childhood. But the Hun had no such
+link with the great historic peoples of the Mediterranean
+Sea. In his language probably no germ of
+affinity with Greek or Sanskrit would have been discernible.
+Wheresoever the common home of the
+Indo-European peoples may eventually be located,
+it is certain that the progenitors of the Hun never
+dwelt there. He was of kin to the Mongol, the
+Calmuck, the Turk, not to the Roman or the Englishman.
+In the world’s history he stands in line
+with Jenghiz Khan, with Tamerlane, with Bajazet,
+not with Alexander or with Caesar. In one word—to
+adopt a term which, however inaccurate, is convenient—he
+was not Aryan, but Turanian.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>A nation of light cavalry.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such then were the invaders from Asia, who, about
+the year 374, precipitated themselves upon the settlements
+of the Ostrogoths in Southern Russia. What
+they may have lacked in size they made up in nimbleness
+of movement, and against the Goths, who do not
+appear to have been pre-eminently an equestrian
+people, they had this advantage, that every man of
+the tribe was mounted, and mounted on a hardy
+wiry little steed, which was probably satisfied with
+the roughest food, and which so perfectly understood
+its rider’s wishes, that it seemed as if horse and
+horseman were one being.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Hermanric defeated.</i></div>
+
+<p>Details as to the conflict between the Huns and
+the Ostrogoths are utterly wanting, but it is clear
+that the latter were completely defeated. Hermanric,
+‘the Ostrogothic Alexander’ who is said to have
+reached the age of 110, in his rage and shame put an
+end to his own life. His wide but loosely compacted
+empire was broken up. Some Ostrogoths, under
+a prince of the house of Hermanric, moved southwards,
+and took part in the events which we are
+about to notice, on the Danube. But the larger part
+of the nation submitted to inevitable necessity and
+bowed their necks to the yoke. For three quarters
+of a century the Ostrogoths formed part of the great
+Hunnish Empire, and their sovereigns, descendants
+of the great Hermanric, ruled as vassals of the
+Hunnish king.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Athanaric defeated. 375.</i></div>
+
+<p>The barbarian flood rolled on and reached the
+river Dniester and the long line of earthworks
+which apparently separated the land of the Visigoths
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>from that of the Ostrogoths&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>&#x2060;. Here Athanaric had
+drawn up his men, expecting a regular attack, to
+which he would have been prepared with a regular
+reply. Little did he know the nature of the nimble
+savages with whom he had to deal. Having learned
+from their scouts where the bulk of the Visigothic
+army was posted (which was probably by the rampart
+rather than by the river), and having found a ford
+across the Dniester, they crossed that ford by moonlight
+and fell like a thunderbolt on the flank of the
+unsuspecting Athanaric. He was stupefied at the
+assault, he saw his bravest friends slain, and he
+found he had no resource but flight. Withdrawing
+to the Carpathians he began to construct a new line
+of defence, partly formed by those mountains and
+partly by the river Sereth. He would have had but
+little leisure to construct this new stronghold, had
+not the Huns been so burdened with their booty
+that they could not follow him in haste.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Visigoths seek refuge within the Empire. 376.</i></div>
+
+<p>And now that the strongest Gothic champions had
+been worsted, dismay and despair entered the hearts
+of the Visigoths. To share the hardships of a life
+in the Carpathians with Athanaric was not the course
+which commended itself to the majority. They looked
+across the broad Danube to the well-tilled plains of
+Moesia; they thought of the tightening bond which
+had of late united them to the Empire; they turned
+to Fritigern, the steadfast partisan of Rome, and
+deemed that through his friendship for the Emperor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>they might find a refuge from the storm. Fritigern
+(who, with a perhaps older colleague, Alavivus, is
+always spoken of as leader of the migration) may
+perhaps, through Ulfilas, have opened negotiations
+with the Imperial Court, negotiations which occupied
+many weeks, for Valens, the reigning Emperor, was
+at Antioch. The terms which Fritigern offered were
+that the Goths would all enter the military service
+of the Empire, and apparently that those who were
+still heathens would embrace the Emperor’s creed,
+which was one of the many forms of Arian Christianity.
+On the other hand there must have been some stipulation
+as to the supply of food, at least for one season,
+to give the new-comers time to till the fields for a
+future harvest.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Goths on the shore of the Danube.</i></div>
+
+<p>While the tedious negotiations were going forward,
+a strange sight might be seen on that Wallachian
+shore of the Danube, where Europe beheld, in 1877,
+the vast host of the Russians manœuvring backwards
+and forwards, in order to find a place where they
+might cross into Bulgaria. On that same shore in
+the autumn of 376 stood 200,000 Goths, stretching
+out their hands in the attitude of entreaty, bewailing
+the hard fate that had befallen them, and shouting
+out, whenever a Roman official came within hearing,
+their eager offers of fealty to the Emperor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Valens gives them permission to cross.</i></div>
+
+<p>At length the answer came from Antioch. Valens
+was flattered by the prospect of the submission of so
+many stalwart warriors; he persuaded himself that
+by enlisting them under his standards he might
+lighten the pressure of taxation on his subjects; he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>perhaps also thought that in the battle of the creeds
+which was still being waged, the adhesion of a strong
+and warlike nation to his own Arian form of faith
+would secure for it the victory. This last consideration,
+however, which is all-important on the
+pages of the ecclesiastical historians, was probably
+only a secondary one in the minds of the Emperor
+and his Council.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Danube crossed.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Rapacity of the Roman officials.</i></div>
+
+<p>Whatever the determining cause may have been,
+the Imperial orders came to Lupicinus the Count of
+Thrace, and Maximus the Duke of Moesia, that the
+refugees were to be admitted into the Empire on
+condition that they gave up their arms, and that the
+boys who were still under age for martial service
+should be surrendered as hostages to be quartered
+in various distant cities of the Empire. Thus the
+long suspense was ended. The Visigoths, who
+night after night had feared to see the Hunnish
+watch-fires blazing in the north and to hear the discordant
+battle-cry of the Asiatics sounding in their
+ears, were relieved from their terrible anxiety. To
+have to part with their gallant sons was hard: to
+have to part with their old and trusty broadswords
+was harder, but life was sweet. There was the
+Moesian shore and safety under the shadow of
+Rome, and here were the sloops ready to carry them
+across to the Promised Land. Night and day, for
+several days, the sloops were crossing and re-crossing,
+till at length 200,000 Gothic warriors, with their
+wives, and children, and aged parents, stood on the
+soil of the Empire. They stood there, not unarmed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>Already they had made their first experience of the
+gigantic corruption of the Imperial service. Lupicinus
+and Maximus, and the officers under them,
+avaricious and lustful men, while superintending the
+transport of the Goths, were thinking all the time
+how to fill their villas with precious spoil and beautiful
+captives, rather than how to obey the orders
+of the Emperor. While they were intent on the
+golden torques, the linen robes, the costly-fringed
+carpets of the Goths, they allowed the broadswords
+and the hunting-knives to pass unquestioned. Already
+before the disembarkation was well over, a
+bitter sense of wrong, and consciousness of power
+to avenge that wrong, were brooding in thousands
+of Gothic hearts.</p>
+
+<p>We may perhaps say of the reception by Valens
+of the Gothic fugitives, as of Elizabeth’s reception of
+Mary Queen of Scots, that either the request for
+asylum should have been refused, or, if granted, it
+should have been granted generously. There was
+abundance of room doubtless in the solitary spaces
+of Moesia for 200,000 sturdy cultivators, and if they
+had been wisely and fairly treated they might have
+formed a stout barrier against all other barbarian
+invaders. Who can say? The Roman Empire
+might be standing yet.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Trojaque nunc staret, Priamique arx alta maneret.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But now, in addition to the grievance of their treasures
+stolen, came the far sorer grievance of food
+withheld. The promised rations, perhaps partly
+from incompetence as well as from bad faith, were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>not forthcoming. With such money as they still
+possessed the unhappy Goths offered to buy food:
+Lupicinus and Maximus bought up dogs from all
+the districts round and sold their flesh to the starving
+immigrants in return for slaves, among whom were
+some of the sons of the noblest of the Goths, driven
+to barter even their children for life. Such wickedness
+as this, thank God, does not often miss its
+reward even in this world.</p>
+
+<p>A few months, however, elapsed before the storm
+of vengeance burst forth. Let us take advantage of
+that short interval to describe the characters of the
+rulers of the Roman State.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Roman Emperors.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">West, <i>Valentinian I, 364-375.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">East, <i>Valens, 364-378.</i></div>
+
+<p>For eleven years (364-375) after the death of
+Julian ‘the Apostate’ and his short-lived successor
+Jovian, Valentinian’s strong hand was at the Empire’s
+helm. A blunt, untutored soldier, with a
+strange dash of cruelty in his nature, he was nevertheless
+a good ruler for those times. He held an
+even balance between the warring Christian sects,
+insisting on toleration all round; he was careful not
+to oppress his subjects by too heavy taxation; he
+defended them from the barbarians, and he repressed
+the licentiousness which was sapping the energies of
+the Empire. The worst thing that he did for his
+country was associating his brother Valens in the
+throne, giving him the rule over the East. Both in
+person and character Valens presented a striking
+contrast to his brother. Valentinian was strong and
+well-shaped, with a bright complexion and clear blue
+eye: everything about him told of energy and decision.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>Valens, torpid and procrastinating, with
+muddy complexion, lack-lustre eye, bent legs and
+protuberant belly, neither looked nor spoke like an
+Emperor of Rome. And over against Valentinian’s
+inflexible and universal religious tolerance had to be
+set the somewhat bitter Arianism of Valens.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">West, <i>Gratian, 375-383. Valentinian II, 375-392.</i></div>
+
+<p>A year before the Hunnish irruption into Europe
+Valentinian died, leaving his brother Valens Emperor
+of the East, and his two sons, Gratian and
+Valentinian II, Emperors of the West, the former
+at Trier, the latter at Milan. Gratian was a lad full
+of noble promise, but only sixteen years of age;
+Valentinian II was a child of four, under the regency
+of his mother, Justina. Decidedly the Imperial
+partnership was weak, ill-adapted for the
+strain of a great crisis, and what made it yet weaker
+was that it was not united. The dull soul of the
+sluggish Valens was jealous of his brilliant nephew,
+who was already showing military aptitudes and
+earning the devotion of his troops. Justina also,
+who was the second wife of the deceased Emperor,
+looked probably with no friendly eye on the growing
+reputation of her step-son. The <i>Concordia Augustorum</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>&#x2060;,
+which was so often celebrated on the Imperial
+medals, was not strong in the year 376.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The banquet at Marcianople. 377.</i></div>
+
+<p>We return to the affairs of the betrayed and
+hunger-stricken Goths. There was as yet no open
+insurrection, but Alavivus and Fritigern were marching
+about in Moesia in a way which seemed to indicate
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>independence and growing suspicion; and,
+moreover, some of the bands of their Ostrogothic
+cousins had taken advantage of the disorder of the
+times, and the occupied attention of the Imperial
+soldiery, to cross the Danube on rafts and pitch
+their camp not far from Fritigern’s. Before long
+Alavivus and Fritigern appeared at the gates of
+Marcianople (the modern Shumla), an important
+city at the intersection of two great cross-roads, and
+commanding a pass through the Balkans. The two
+Visigothic chiefs were still ostensibly captains of the
+Emperor’s <i>foederati</i>, and Lupicinus, Count of Thrace,
+bade them to a banquet. The barbarians who followed
+them had flocked into the city to purchase
+provisions. A dispute arose between them and the
+citizens which led to bloodshed, and the news of the
+disturbance reached Lupicinus when he was reclining
+at the luxurious banquet, flushed with wine
+and scarcely keeping his heavy eyes open by gazing
+at the performers of a pantomime. Languidly he
+ordered the tall young Gothic nobles who were
+keeping guard over their chief at the door of the
+<i>praetorium</i> to be hewn down by the far more numerous
+Roman soldiery. The groans of the dying, and
+the battle-shout of those who were yet fighting for
+their lives, penetrated the innermost chambers of
+the palace, and aroused Fritigern from the pleasures
+of the dainty repast. If his host sought to soothe
+him by alleging that it was only a drunken brawl
+that was going on outside,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘his soul more truly knew that sound too well.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">He drew his sword and stalked down through the
+banquet hall, exclaiming that if there was a tumult
+among the Goths he alone could quell it. The
+pretext, or the naked sword, secured him a safe
+passage through the trembling ranks of the banqueters.
+He was received with a shout of joy by
+his surviving companions. They mounted their
+horses and rode out of the gates of the city; and
+now, openly declaring war against the Empire, began
+to plunder and to burn the rich farmsteads in the
+neighbourhood of Marcianople. Lupicinus marched
+forth to meet them at the ninth milestone from the
+city; but his troops, hastily collected, were badly
+led. The Goths, in their fury and despair, beat
+down their enemies. All the tribunes (commissioned
+officers) and the larger part of the rank and file were
+stretched in death upon the plain. The base Lupicinus,
+whose cruelty and avarice had caused the
+disaster, escaped from this battle-field, but before
+long both he and his colleague in guilt, Maximus,
+fell victims to the righteous vengeance of the Goths&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<p>That day, that fatal day of the banquet at Marcianople,
+‘took away,’ says the Gothic historian, ‘the
+hunger of the Goths and the security of the Romans;
+and the former now began, not as strangers
+and foreigners, but as citizens and lords, to issue
+their orders to the cultivators of the soil, and to hold
+all the northern regions [from the Balkans] to the
+Danube in their own right.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>377-378. Gothic War.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>377. Battle of Ad Salices.</i></div>
+
+<p>The war thus commenced lasted, with varying
+success, through the years 377 and 378. The Emperor
+Valens, during the whole of the former year,
+remained at Antioch, but sent two officers of high
+rank, but of no great military skill, to conduct the
+campaign in his stead. On the whole, however, the
+fortune of war must have been unfavourable to the
+Goths (who evidently fought with more fury than
+science), since the chief battle of this year was
+fought at a place called Ad Salices (the Willows), as
+far north as the region now known as the Dobrudscha.
+Our chief historian&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> (himself long an officer
+of rank in the Imperial army) gives a striking description
+of the Gothic warriors, encamped in the
+centre of a rampart of waggons, and revelling in the
+abundance of the booty which they had carried off
+from the wasted plains of Thrace. All night the
+two armies lay encamped near to one another in
+sleepless suspense. With the dawn of day the barbarians
+made an attempt to reach some higher
+ground, from whence they might rush down on the
+enemy; but this manœuvre was checked by a well-executed
+counter-movement of the legions. As both
+armies halted and gazed at one another with scowling
+faces, the Romans raised their martial song
+(itself borrowed from other barbarians), which was
+known as the <i>barritus</i>, and which, beginning in a
+low bass key, rose, as it were, by steps to a shrill
+and exultant treble. The barbarians answered by
+the old war-songs (discordant in Roman ears, but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>in which our Saxon forefathers would probably have
+found familiar music), wherein they sang the praises
+of their glorious ancestors, sprung from the seed of
+gods, and dear to Odin.</p>
+
+<p>Then the battle was joined, and the marshy willow-intersected
+plain was seen covered with every phase
+of human agony; but all was din and confusion,
+and if any well-concerted plan was formed or
+executed on either side, it does not appear in the
+pages of the historian. The battle was a drawn
+one; but apparently the Romans were left in
+possession of the field, for their dead were buried,
+while the bodies of the Goths were left to be devoured
+by vultures. Years after, the husbandman,
+ploughing in that fatal plain, marvelled at the mighty
+bones of the barbarians which his plough-share upturned.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Advance of Gratian.</i></div>
+
+<p>In this battle good service had been rendered by
+some troops which Gratian had sent from Gaul to
+the assistance of his uncle. The young Emperor
+had had his own hard battles to fight with the barbarians
+who dwelt on the northern shore of the Lake
+of Constance, but having subdued them he marched
+eastwards in 378 as far as Sirmium on the Save,
+from which place he sent a message to Valens that
+he was ready to co-operate with him in an attack on
+the Goths, whose invasion seemed to imperil the
+very existence of the eastern portion of the Empire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>378. Valens at Hadrianople.</i></div>
+
+<p>But Valens, who had by this time quitted Antioch
+for Constantinople, was jealous of his young nephew’s
+fame, and in no humour to add one needless leaf of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>laurel to his crown. He had pitched his camp near
+Hadrianople, and there received the messengers of
+Gratian, who earnestly besought him to wait for their
+master’s arrival. So Victor advised, a Slavonic
+barbarian by birth, but master of the Imperial
+cavalry, and a careful and cautious general. So,
+however, did not advise his other chief general
+Sebastian, who was elated by some recent victories
+that he had won over the barbarians: and his rash
+counsels found too sure an echo in the jealous
+heart of Valens. It was decided to fight at once
+and end the Gothic war by the unaided forces of
+the East.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Negotiations between Fritigern and Valens.</i></div>
+
+<p>But Fritigern on his side had allies whose arrival
+he was expecting. The Ostrogothic chiefs, Alatheus
+and Saphrax, were on their march to join him, and
+he would fain postpone the battle till they arrived.
+He therefore sent a Christian priest on an embassy
+to Valens, offering to make peace if he and his
+followers might be allowed to occupy Thrace as
+subjects of the Empire. Nothing came of these
+negotiations; nothing was meant to come of them;
+but time was gained for Alatheus and Saphrax to
+accomplish another day’s march towards the army
+of Fritigern.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Battle of Hadrianople, 9 Aug. 378.</i></div>
+
+<p>On the 9th August, 378, a day long and fatally
+memorable in the annals of the Empire, the legions
+of Valens moved forth from their entrenched camp
+under the walls of Hadrianople, and after a march of
+eight miles under the hot sun of August came in
+sight of the barbarian vanguard, behind which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>stretched the circling line of the waggons that
+guarded the Gothic host.</p>
+
+<p>Yet another embassy did the artful Fritigern
+(perhaps not over-confident of victory) send into
+the Roman camp. There were discussions as to
+the dignity and powers of the messengers: the Goth
+was willing to send one of his noblest chiefs if the
+Roman would do the same as a pledge of his safety.
+Richomer, Count of the Domestics, Gratian’s representative,
+expressed his willingness to go as a
+hostage into the barbarian camp, but scarcely had
+he reached it when, behold! fresh standards were
+seen upon the surrounding hills. The long-waited
+for troops of Alatheus and Saphrax had arrived, and
+not pausing in their headlong career fell like a
+thunderbolt on the Roman flank.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers of the Empire, hot, thirsty, wearied
+out with hours of waiting under the blaze of an
+August sun, and only half understanding that the
+negotiations were ended and the battle begun, fought
+at a terrible disadvantage, but fought not ill. The
+infantry on the left wing seem even to have pushed
+back their enemies and penetrated to the Gothic
+waggons. But they were for some reason not
+covered as usual by a force of cavalry, and they
+were jammed into a too narrow space of ground
+where they could not use their spears with effect,
+yet presented a terribly easy mark to the Gothic
+arrows. They fell in dense masses as they had
+stood. Then the whole weight of the enemy’s attack
+was directed against the centre and right. When
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>the evening began to close in, the utterly routed
+Roman soldiers were rushing in disorderly flight
+from the fatal field. The night, dark and moonless,
+may have protected some, but more met their
+death rushing blindly over a rugged and unknown
+country.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Fate of Valens.</i></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Valens had sought shelter with a little
+knot of soldiers (the two regiments of Lancearii and
+Mattiarii), who still remained unmoved amidst the
+surging sea of ruin. When their ranks too were
+broken, and when some of his bravest officers had
+fallen around him, he joined the common soldiers
+in their headlong flight. Struck by a Gothic arrow
+he fell to the ground, but was carried off by some of
+the eunuchs and life-guardsmen who still accompanied
+him, to a peasant’s cottage hard by. The
+Goths, ignorant of his rank, but eager to strip the
+gaily-clothed guardsmen, surrounded the cottage and
+attempted in vain to burst in the doors. Then mounting
+to the roof they tried to smoke out the imprisoned
+inmates, but succeeding beyond their desires, set fire
+to the cottage, and Emperor, eunuchs, and life-guards
+perished in the flames. Only one of
+the body-guard escaped, who climbed out through
+one of the blazing windows and fell into the
+hands of the barbarians. He told them when it
+was too late what a prize they had missed in their
+cruel eagerness, nothing less than the Emperor of
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Ecclesiastical historians for generations delighted
+to point the moral of the story of Valens, that he who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>had seduced the whole Gothic nation into the heresy
+of Arius, and thus caused them to suffer the punishment
+of everlasting fire, was himself by those very
+Goths burned alive on the terrible 9th of August.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_IV">LECTURE IV.<br>
+<span class="allsmcap">THEODOSIUS.</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>378.</i></div>
+
+<p>In the battle of Hadrianople two-thirds of the
+Roman army fell. The two Counts, Sebastian and
+Trajan (the General-in-Chief and his predecessor),
+Valerian, the Count of the Imperial Stables, and
+Aequitius, a relation of the Emperor and Superintendent
+of his palace&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>&#x2060;, were all stretched dead upon the
+field. There too lay thirty-five Tribunes, officers
+whose military rank corresponded with that of our
+Colonels. The historian says, with perfect truth,
+that since the day of Cannae no such disaster had
+befallen the Roman army. Nor had the Roman
+State, now in the twelfth century of its existence,
+the same power of recovering from its reverses which
+it possessed in the sixth century from the building
+of the City, when the statue of Victory in the Capitol
+drooped her wings at the news of the slaughter on
+the Apulian plain.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Movements of the Goths after the battle of Hadrianople.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>378. Siege of Constantinople.</i></div>
+
+<p>Yet the Goths, though they had shown that they
+could win a battle, had as yet neither discipline nor
+warlike art sufficient to enable them to conquer in a
+campaign. An unsuccessful attack on Hadrianople
+was followed by an equal failure before the walls of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>Constantinople. By a strange inversion of its future
+fates, the Imperial capital by the Bosphorus was
+defended from these Visigoths (the ancestors of
+Don John of Austria and of all the Christian chivalry
+of Spain) by a body of Saracen soldiers who had
+been enlisted under the banners of the Empire. One
+of these wild defenders of civilisation, nearly naked
+but with long and shaggy hair, dashed forward
+with a melancholy howl into the Gothic ranks,
+stabbed an enemy with his short sword, and then
+putting his lips to the neck of the slain foe
+sucked his life-blood with eager zest. The thought
+of fighting against such monsters as this was too
+terrible for the impressionable Goths, and they
+retired disheartened from the walls.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Weakness of the Goths as besiegers.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>A Roman siege-train.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>378-9.</i></div>
+
+<p>But, quite independently of any such exceptional
+causes of panic, there was a striking weakness in
+the Gothic attack whenever they came face to face
+with a fenced city. When Fritigern marched away
+from the treacherous city of Marcianople, crying
+out, ‘I wage no war on stone walls,’ he expressed
+that which was of necessity the maxim of all the barbarian
+warriors during the succeeding century. It
+cannot be said that at this time the powers of the
+defence in sieges were necessarily superior to those
+of the attack. On the contrary, in the wars between
+Persia and Rome it is remarkable how often the
+same cities were taken and retaken. But a siege required
+patience, mechanical skill, and untiring vigilance,
+and could not be decided by a mere outburst
+of Berserker fury such as sometimes swept the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>legions before it on the field of battle. In reading
+the account of a Roman siege-train given by Ammianus
+Marcellinus&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>&#x2060;, though I cannot say that I
+understand all his explanations (and I believe it
+would require the combination of an expert mechanician
+and an invincible translator of Latin to make
+sense of many of them), still it is easy to perceive
+this much—that a siege was then, as now, practically
+a duel of artillery, though in the working of that
+artillery the explosive force of gunpowder was not
+made use of, and that it was by the engineer, rather
+than by the warrior, that the strongest city was
+taken. There was the <i>Balista</i>, for the discharge of
+the strong iron-shod wooden arrow; the <i>Scorpion</i>,
+or the <i>Wild Ass</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>&#x2060;, which suddenly reared itself high
+in air and hurled forth its heavy stone; the <i>Battering
+Ram</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a>&#x2060;, for butting at all the weakest places in a
+wall; the <i>City-taker</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a>&#x2060;, which fastened its triangular
+prongs into the wall and tore it to pieces. By these
+and by the great moving towers the city was attacked,
+and by machines as complicated and as destructive,
+but of a somewhat different kind, it was
+defended. For all this sort of work, as I have said,
+not only the humbler qualities of the soldier—patience
+and vigilance—but also some of the skill of
+a trained mechanician, were needed; and these
+qualities, abundantly present in many even of the
+common soldiers among the Italians, the Greeks,
+and the Persians, were yet wanting in the untutored
+brains of the Teutonic warriors.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>Therefore the story of the wars between the barbarians
+and the Empire is for the most part a story
+of monotonous uniformity of ill-success, as far as the
+sieges undertaken by the former are concerned. They
+win battles in the open field; they occupy the great
+Roman roads, and cut off communication between
+the provinces and the capital; they lay waste the
+country districts, and sometimes by the famine thus
+caused they deprive the citizens of the means of
+prolonging their resistance. More often, by the
+treachery of slaves or fellow-countrymen of their
+own inside the walls, they bring about the city’s
+fall; but scarcely ever do they take it by fair and
+open warfare, in a regularly-conducted siege. And
+for a considerable part of those seventy years of
+struggle which I am briefly describing to you, you
+must think of the cities as standing up behind their
+quadrangular walls, little islands of civilisation and
+still unshaken loyalty to the Empire, while over the
+fields and through the unwalled villages rages the
+wide-sweeping flood of barbarian invasion.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Gothic attack grows feebler, 378-379.</i></div>
+
+<p>This was essentially the character of the war
+during the years 378 and 379, though the Roman
+defence was gradually becoming stronger, and the
+attacks of the Goths wilder and more purposeless
+during the whole of that period. The despair and
+the hatred which had banded them together as one
+man under the leadership of Fritigern, lost their
+uniting power. They roamed southwards into the
+pleasant lands of Achaia, northwards to the Save,
+into and perhaps across the borders of Pannonia;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>but the hope of plunder and a child’s love of breaking
+beautiful things seem to have been their only
+motives. There is no longer a trace of that serious
+purpose of conquest which does seem to have
+animated them up to the day of Hadrianople.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Gothic hostage-boys massacred. 378-9.</i></div>
+
+<p>One vile deed of a Roman official must have stirred
+many Gothic hearts to fury, yet did not receive its
+proper meed of vengeance. It will be remembered
+that when the Visigothic warriors were ferried across
+the Danube in the Imperial cutters, they were compelled
+to deliver up the sons of the noblest among
+them as hostages. These lads had been distributed
+through the cities of the East: while their fathers and
+their kindred had been suffering the hardships of
+famine, they had been growing up to manhood, and
+it was feared that the news of the victory of Hadrianople
+might arouse them to some deed of daring
+against the Empire. Julius, Master of the Soldiery&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a>&#x2060;,
+to whose care these young hostages had been especially
+committed, sent for the various military prefects,
+and after binding them to secrecy under solemn
+oaths, communicated to them his bloody purpose.
+The young Goths in each district were invited to the
+capital of the province under promise of receiving
+grants of money and land from the Emperor. They
+came full of hope and of good-humour towards their
+hosts. As soon as they were all collected in the
+forum of each city, the soldiers, who had been previously
+stationed on the roofs of the surrounding
+houses, assailed them with darts and stones. They
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>were of course utterly unable to strike a blow in
+return against their cowardly assailants, and each
+Asiatic forum soon had its heap of unresisting slain.
+A base and treacherous deed, and one which we
+regret to find both our two chief historians&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> of this
+period mentioning with words of praise for its
+cowardly contrivers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Gratian associates Theodosius in the Imperial dignity.</i></div>
+
+<p>The disorganisation of the Empire after the battle
+of Hadrianople was complete, and Gratian wisely
+concluded that he, a lad of nineteen, was not able,
+unaided, to bring it to a close. He looked around
+him for a colleague, and recognised with the frankness
+of his noble nature that there was no man so
+suitable for the post as one whom his family had
+deeply wronged, the late Duke of Moesia, <span class="smcap">Theodosius</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Origin of Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<p>This man, whose name in various ways has become
+so famous in the history both of the Empire
+and the Church, was born about the year 346 at a
+place called Cauca, in the north-western corner of
+Spain. He belonged by birth to the class of wealthy
+Provincials from which many of the officials of the
+Empire were chosen, and who constituted in fact, if
+not in name, a sort of rural nobility. After he had
+been clothed with the purple, flatterers and poets
+discovered that he was a remote descendant of the
+great Emperor Trajan, but this seems to have been
+only a courtier-like deduction from the fact that he,
+like Trajan, was a Spaniard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>368-376.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theodosius the Elder.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>376-379.</i></div>
+
+<p>His father, Count Theodosius, had been sent to
+Britain in 368 to repel an invasion of Picts, Scots,
+and Attacotti, and making the old town of Lundinium
+his base of operations, had attacked the
+various parties of freebooters who were roaming
+about the country, and had succeeded in spoiling the
+spoilers, and restoring the greater part of their property
+to the plundered provincials. Two years
+afterwards he had delivered Raetia (Tyrol and the
+Grisons) from a similar invasion of the Alamanni,
+and had sent many of the invaders to Italy to cultivate
+as serfs the meadow lands of the Po. In 373
+he conducted a most successful campaign in Africa
+against a Mauritanian chieftain, Firmus, who had
+rebelled against the Emperor. The rebel committed
+suicide, and his conqueror, with the title of <i>Comes
+Africae</i>, administered the government of the province
+which he had saved. Then came a sudden check to
+his prosperous course. In 376, shortly after the
+death of Valentinian, he was accused, we know not
+on what charge, sentenced to death, and beheaded
+at Carthage, having first received the sacrament of
+baptism. The cause of this strange and sad termination
+of an honourable career has never been explained.
+Some think that the young Gratian, only
+just arrived at the helm of affairs, was jealous of the
+veteran’s fame, but nothing in the character of that
+Emperor justifies so foul a charge. Others believe
+that his real offence was having exposed the villainies
+and peculations of Romanus, his predecessor in the
+government of Africa. But it seems to me on the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>whole most probable that his death was in some
+way connected with an outburst of jealous rage and
+suspicion on the part of Valens against all persons
+whose names began with the letters THEOD, Theodorus,
+Theodoret, and so forth, as it had come to
+the ears of the Emperor that a citizen of Antioch
+had been resorting to magical arts to learn the name
+of his future successor, and that those letters (which
+proved fatal to many a Roman citizen) had been
+revealed by the oracle as forming the beginning of
+the fated name.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of his father, the young Theodosius,
+then about thirty years of age, who had done good
+service to the State as Duke of Moesia, retired into
+private life. If, as was probably the case, he was
+succeeded by the base and corrupt Maximus, whose
+avarice drove the Goths to despair, the unjust death
+of the elder Theodosius was indeed soon and terribly
+avenged on his ungrateful masters.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theodosius Emperor of the East, 19 Jan. 379.</i></div>
+
+<p>Now, however, the fortunes of the house of Theodosius
+emerged from the cloud, more resplendent
+than ever. The new Emperor was clothed in the
+purple and invested with ‘the rule of the universe’
+(ἡ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχή) at Sirmium, on the 19th of January,
+379. The share of the Empire assigned to his immediate
+superintendence was of course the East,
+together with Macedonia and Dacia. The rest of
+the Diocese of Illyricum was joined, now as on
+many other occasions, to the Western half of the
+Empire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Guerilla War. 379-380.</i></div>
+
+<p>The first duty that Theodosius had to undertake
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>was to restore the self-confidence and trust in victory
+of the Roman army, terribly shaken as these qualities
+had been by the disastrous rout of Hadrianople.
+This he accomplished by waging a successful guerilla
+war with the Gothic marauders. Valens had
+played into the hands of the barbarians by risking
+everything on one great pitched battle. Theodosius
+adopted the very opposite policy. He outmanœuvred
+the isolated and straggling bands of the
+Goths, defeated them in one skirmish after another
+that did not deserve the name of a battle, and thus
+restored the courage and confidence of the Imperial
+troops. By the end of 379 he seems to have succeeded
+in clearing the territory south of the Balkan
+range of the harassing swarms of the barbarians.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Sickness of Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<p>In February, 380, he fell sick at Thessalonica
+(which was his chief basis of operations throughout
+this period), and this sickness, from which he did
+not fully recover for some months, was productive of
+two important results, (1) his baptism as a Trinitarian
+Christian, (2) a renewal of the war against fresh
+swarms of barbarians.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theodosius adopts the Creed of Nicaea. 380.</i></div>
+
+<p>(1) Theodosius appears up to this point of his
+career not to have definitely ranged himself on
+either side of the great Arian controversy, though
+he had a hereditary inclination towards the Creed of
+Nicaea. Like his father, however, he had postponed
+baptism in accordance with the prevalent
+usage of his day: but now upon a bed of sickness
+which seemed likely to be one of death, he delayed
+no longer, but received the rite at the hands of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>Ascholius, the Catholic Bishop of Thessalonica.
+Before he was able to resume his post at the head
+of the legions, he published his celebrated Edict:
+‘To the people of Constantinople.—We desire that
+all the nations who are governed by the rule of our
+Clemency shall practise that religion which the Apostle
+Peter himself delivered to the Romans, and which
+it is manifest that the pontiff Damasus, and Peter,
+Bishop of Alexandria, a man of Apostolic sanctity,
+do now follow: that according to the discipline of
+the Apostles and the teaching of the Evangelists
+they believe in the one Godhead of Father, Son,
+and Holy Spirit, in equal Majesty, and in the holy
+Trinity. We order all who follow this law to assume
+the name of Catholic Christians, decreeing that all
+others, being mad and foolish persons, shall bear the
+infamy of their heretical dogmas, and that their Conventicles
+shall not receive the name of Churches: to
+be punished first by Divine vengeance, and afterwards
+by that exertion of our power to chastise
+which we have received from the decree of heaven.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The power of the Eastern State now enlisted on the side of Orthodoxy.</i></div>
+
+<p>Thus then at length the Caesar of the East was
+ranged on the side of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Constantine
+in the latter part of his reign, Constantius,
+Valens, had all been Arians or semi-Arians, some of
+them bitter in their heterodoxy. Julian had been a
+worshipper of the gods of Olympus. Thus for nearly
+two generations the influence of the Court of Constantinople
+had been thrown into the scale against
+the teaching of Athanasius, which was generally
+accepted throughout the Western realm. Now by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>the accession of Theodosius to the Trinitarian side,
+religious unity was restored to the Empire: but at
+the same time a chasm, an impassable chasm, was
+opened between the Empire itself and its new Teutonic
+guests, nearly all of whom held fast to the
+Arian teaching of their great Apostle Ulfilas.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Further inroads of the barbarians.</i></div>
+
+<p>(2) The other consequence of the sickness of
+Theodosius was, as I have said, a fresh incursion of
+barbarian hordes, swarming across the Danube and
+climbing all the high passes of the Balkans. The
+work of clearing the country of these marauders had
+to be all done over again. One dark night, when
+the Emperor was encamping in Macedonia, the barbarians,
+seeing a particularly bright watch-fire burning,
+and rightly conjecturing that it marked the tent
+of the Emperor, made a sudden dash and very nearly
+succeeded in sending Theodosius to rejoin his predecessor
+Valens. There was a terrible struggle:
+few Romans against the overwhelming hosts of the
+Goths, but the soldiers of Theodosius, who loved
+him well, fought on desperately till he had escaped,
+and then fell dead, surrounded by an uncounted
+host of slain barbarians.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Reinforcements sent by Gratian, 380.</i></div>
+
+<p>The campaign of 380 was such a hard one that
+Theodosius had to solicit reinforcements from his
+colleague Gratian, which were sent to him under
+the command of Bauto and Arbogast, two Frankish
+chiefs who had entered the Imperial service. Indeed
+all along the line, in the West as in the East, the
+characteristic feature of this period was the number
+of barbarians who attained high rank in the legions
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>of Rome, and who upon the whole served her with
+marked fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>At length, in the closing months of 380, the
+provinces south of the Balkans (Macedonia and
+Thrace) were once more cleared of their barbarian
+intruders. Peace, in which Gratian concurred, was
+concluded with the Goths who still doubtless abounded
+in Moesia; and Theodosius on the 24th
+of November entered Constantinople in state.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theodosius welcomes Athanaric at Constantinople, 381.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Athanaric’s death.</i></div>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of the New Rome by the Bosphorus,
+who perhaps had not before seen Theodosius as
+Emperor, were soon to behold a ruler of a very
+different type side by side with the courtly and
+magnificent Spaniard. The grey old Visigoth, Athanaric,
+had been driven, apparently by Ostrogothic
+invaders, from his airy stronghold in the Carpathians.
+The death of Fritigern (which seems
+to have happened about this time) left him the chief
+ruler of the scattered and disorganised Visigothic
+nation. Converted from his old, almost religious
+prejudice against Rome, and recanting the oath
+which he had once sworn never to set foot on the
+soil of the Empire, he now crossed the Danube and
+accepted the Emperor’s invitation to visit him in
+his capital, probably in order to ratify and proclaim
+to the world the peace just concluded between
+‘Romania’ and ‘Gothia.’ We must let the Gothic
+historian tell the story of this visit in his own expressive
+words&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<p>‘Theodosius attached to himself King Athanaric,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>who had succeeded Fritigern, by the gifts which he
+gave him, and in the kindest terms invited him to visit
+him at Constantinople; who accepted right willingly
+and said, marvelling, “Lo, I behold, what often I
+heard incredulously, the fame of so great a city.” Then
+turning his eyes this way and that, now he admires
+the position of the city and the concourse of ships,
+now the long clearly-marked line of the walls, and
+then again the natives from so many different stocks
+bubbling up like water from one fountain in many
+directions, yet all disciplined like well-trained soldiers.
+“A god,” he said, “without doubt a god upon earth is
+the Emperor, and whoever moveth a hand against
+him, that man is guilty of his own blood.” In such
+a state of admiration, being supported by the yet
+greater honours which he received from the Emperor,
+after the interval of a few months [or more correctly
+fourteen days&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>&#x2060;] he departed from the light of day.
+Whom the Emperor out of the love which he bore to
+him, honouring almost more as dead than as alive,
+delivered to a worthy burial, himself going before
+the bier in his solemn obsequies. Therefore when
+Athanaric was dead, all his army, remaining in the
+service of the Emperor Theodosius, and submitting
+itself to the Roman Empire, formed as it were one
+body with the [Imperial] soldiery, that old enlistment
+of the Foederati under the Emperor Constantine
+being now renewed, and they themselves were now
+called Foederati.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The bulk of the Goths become Foederati of the Empire.</i></div>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that the politic courtesy
+which Theodosius showed to Athanaric exercised an
+important influence on the relations which existed
+for the next fifteen years between the Empire and
+the Goths. If we look at the position of the two
+parties to the contract we shall see that the conclusion
+or the renewal of the <i>Foedus</i> between them was
+really for the interest of both. For the Empire, a
+complete reversal of the policy of Valens was now
+impossible. Ever since the day when the last of
+the 200,000 Gothic warriors was ferried across the
+Danube, their inclusion in the Empire in one capacity
+or another had become an accomplished and
+irreversible fact. They could not be thrust back
+into their old Dacian home, where by this time the
+Huns were probably swarming, but they might be
+converted from the ravagers of Thrace into the
+tillers of Moesia. They might be made the stalwart
+defenders of the Danubian frontier against those
+very Huns, and against the motley horde of Teutons,
+Slaves, and Tartars who flocked around their
+standard of squalid and anarchic despotism.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand the Goths, unable to capture
+the strong cities of the Empire, could not live
+perpetually on the mere ravage of the Thracian
+home-steads. Viewing the movements of peoples
+and the migrations of barbarous tribes from the high
+historic standpoint, and especially seeing what these
+movements and migrations actually accomplished in
+the fifth century of our era, we are apt to think that
+the conquest of kingdoms and the foundation of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>empires was the deliberate and persistent purpose
+of chief and people. On the contrary, if we could be
+present in the rough councils which gathered around
+their camp-fires and listen to the talk of the warriors
+with their wives in the great Gothic waggons, we
+should probably discover that the question in what
+way and from what source the next day’s meal was
+to be provided, was far more often and more
+anxiously debated than any question of high policy
+or dream of world-conquest. Now, by the policy
+which Theodosius seemed willing to adopt of renewing
+the old <i>Foedus</i> between Rome and her Gothic
+friends, food, and comfortable homes, and a distinguished
+career in arms were assured to the
+meanest Gothic soldier, and admission to the
+dignities and luxuries of the most splendid court in
+the world was assured to their chiefs. The Roman
+Empire was still, if I may use a commercial phrase,
+‘a going concern.’ The barbarians had power to
+wreck it and drive it into bankruptcy? Yes, perhaps
+they had: but it was surely a far more alluring
+prospect to take shares in the company and touch
+some part of the enormous profits which accrued to
+the directors.</p>
+
+<p>This kind of calculation—and I have purposely
+chosen a commercial metaphor in order to indicate
+the perfectly selfish character of the bargain—prevailed
+at this time in the minds of the barbarians
+over any dim and shadowy dreams which might
+linger there of setting up a new and conquering
+Visigothic kingdom between the Danube and the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>Balkans. But then, when self-interest was prompting
+them to this course, sentiment was enlisted on the
+same side by the generous hospitality offered to the
+worn-out veteran Athanaric in the great city of the
+South, by his own childlike admiration of the wonders
+which she displayed to his view, by the splendid
+funeral, and by the sight of the courtly Augustus,
+robed in the purple and wearing the diadem of Empire,
+escorting the Gothic warrior to his tomb.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>What did the relation of Foederati involve?</i></div>
+
+<p>What the precise nature of the tie was which
+bound the <i>foederati</i> to the Empire I do not think
+we can definitely explain. From time immemorial
+Rome had fought her battles with troops pretty
+equally divided between the legions (theoretically
+composed of pure Roman citizens) and the <i>Auxilia</i>
+(consisting of her subject-allies). These allies had
+at first been chiefly dwellers in the cities of Latium,
+but by the time that we have now reached they were
+gathered from almost every nation under heaven.
+Here, in our own Northumberland, all the garrison
+duty along the Wall was done by these auxiliary
+troops. Asturians from Spain, Tungrians and Batavians
+from Holland, Dacians from Transylvania, and
+Dalmatians from the eastern shore of the Hadriatic,
+were keeping watch for Rome on these wind-swept
+hills. But <i>those</i> allies were still distinctly Roman
+soldiers, who served under Roman officers, and
+were amenable to Roman discipline. The bond
+which held the <i>foederati</i> to the Empire appears to
+have been a much looser one. It would seem that
+the federated Goths still served under their own
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>native chiefs, and retained to a large extent their
+national weapons and their own peculiar manner of
+fighting. They no doubt had lands assigned to
+them, chiefly in Moesia, which they may have cultivated
+partly with their own hands and partly by the
+forced labour of <i>coloni</i>. In fact, though we are of
+course still many centuries off from regular feudal
+rights and obligations, there was probably something
+in the relation of a chief of <i>foederati</i> to the Emperor
+not altogether unlike the relation of a feudal baron
+to his lord paramount.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Results of the policy of Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<p>The scheme of Theodosius answered as a temporary
+expedient. It gave security to the Danubian
+frontier for his day; perhaps had his successors
+been men of equal ability with himself it might have
+prolonged that security for centuries. But there
+were some obvious dangers attending it. Evidently
+these masses of men, trained to act together, obeying
+their own princes, and conscious of their strength,
+might one day turn against Rome the weapons which
+they were now wielding on her behalf. The ‘provincials,’
+the earlier subjects of Rome, finding their
+services less needed, would grow unused to warfare,
+and would in the course of time be almost sure to
+sink into a despised and spiritless caste, among
+whom the proud Teutonic <i>foederatus</i> would stalk
+with an exasperating consciousness of superiority.
+Above all, the Emperor himself, having the barbarians
+for his tent companions, the sharers of his
+dangers, the confidants of his councils, and the supporters
+of his throne, would get to lean more and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>more upon them, and might become an Emperor of
+barbarians instead of an Emperor of the civilised
+commonwealth of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The whole history of Theodosius shows that
+this was a very real danger in his time. There
+was something in his own character, fond as he
+was of pomp and spectacle and the mere outward
+trappings of royalty, which harmonised only too well
+with the nature of the barbarians. While he was
+surrounding himself with troops of tall and brilliantly-accoutred
+<i>foederati</i>, and spending his time and
+the money of his subjects over an endless round of
+games and chariot-races, and on sumptuous banquets
+at which the Gothic ‘wassail’ was loudly
+heard, the provinces were groaning under the
+demands of the tax-gatherer; and the machine
+of administration which Valens, with all his faults,
+had superintended with some diligence, was daily
+getting into more and more hopeless disorganisation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Insurrection of Antioch, 387.</i></div>
+
+<p>Both the two great insurrections which broke out
+in the reign of Theodosius, and each of which is
+connected with the story of a great father of the
+Church, sprang, directly or indirectly, from the
+favour shown by the Emperor to his <i>foederati</i>. In
+the year 387 he determined to celebrate the fifth
+year of the reign of his young son Arcadius, whom
+he had associated with him in the Empire, in a style
+of extraordinary magnificence. For this purpose
+there must be more splendid games, more exciting
+chariot-races, and, above all, a more liberal donative
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>to the soldiery than any that had yet been given.
+In order to supply funds for these various expenses,
+a new tax (probably what was called the
+<i>aurum coronarium</i>) was levied on the cities of the
+Empire. At the news of this fresh imposition, the
+citizens of Antioch, already ground down to the very
+dust by the pressure of the ordinary taxation, broke
+out into open rebellion. While the more respectable
+and religious citizens betook themselves to the
+churches to pray God to change the Emperor’s
+purpose, or besought the Bishop Flavianus to intercede
+for the removal of the tax, a mob of boys and
+‘lewd fellows of the baser sort’ visited the spacious
+Baths, and cutting the ropes by which the lamps were
+suspended, caused them to fall with a crash on the
+pavement. Then the boys began to throw stones at
+the wooden statues of the Emperor and his family.
+They shouted for joy when one of the statues was
+split in pieces; they groaned when one, more stubborn
+than the rest, long resisted their assaults.
+They then went to the more costly bronze statues,
+pulled them from their pedestals with ropes, dragged
+them ignominiously through the streets, and ended
+by giving them to the children to play with. What
+made the insult the more bitter was, that not only
+the statues of the Emperor himself, but those of the
+noble old veteran his father, of his lately deceased
+wife, and of his young son and colleague, were all
+treated with the same contumely. Next came an
+attempt at fire-raising in the house of a magistrate
+who tried to persuade them to cease their rioting;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>and last, the appearance of some Imperial archers,
+who discharged their arrows upon the crowd. Thereupon
+at once the tumult, which had flamed up so
+high and seemed so menacing, died down like a fire
+of straw.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Reaction from insolence to panic.</i></div>
+
+<p>The insult to the majesty of the Emperor had been
+great, perhaps unforgiveable. The whole city passed
+in an hour from the extreme of insolence and anarchy
+to the extreme of cowed submission and abject
+terror, while the messengers bearing the fatal tidings
+were going to and returning from Constantinople.
+The sedition had broken out a few days before Lent
+(387), and the whole of the forty days of that sacred
+season were indeed days of fasting and humiliation
+to the luxurious citizens of Antioch. About the
+middle of them arrived a letter from the Emperor,
+sharply rebuking the Town Council for allowing
+the sedition to gain such a height, ordering that the
+Theatre, the Hippodrome, and the Baths should all
+be closed, and depriving Antioch of the rank, which
+she had held for six centuries, as capital of Syria.
+Shortly after appeared two Imperial Commissioners—Caesarius
+and Ellebichus—charged to make enquiry
+into the recent events; and they began their
+enquiry by putting all the Senators of Antioch into
+close confinement.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Pardon.</i></div>
+
+<p>The two commissioners, however, were specimens
+of the best class of Roman officials, men utterly unlike
+Lupicinus and Maximus. They marked the
+sincere repentance and the agonised prostration of
+terror which pervaded all classes in Antioch, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>they soon allowed it to appear that their influence at
+any rate would be exerted on the side of mercy.
+Caesarius, when the enquiry was completed, set off
+with all speed to Constantinople, and reached that
+city on the sixth day after his departure from Antioch.
+No Turkish courier probably could now traverse
+the length and breadth of Asia Minor in anything
+like so short a time. Theodosius listened to the
+arguments of Caesarius in favour of mercy, to the
+prayers and sighs of Bishop Flavianus, who had
+come to intercede on behalf of his flock, and granted
+a complete amnesty, rescinding also his previous
+decree for the degradation of Antioch from the rank
+of capital city. This letter, carried by a swift messenger
+to Ellebichus, was by him communicated to
+the citizens of Antioch, who received it with shouts
+of welcome and tears of joy. Their fifty days of
+mourning were ended, and Antioch, the light-hearted
+Paris of the East, was herself again.</p>
+
+<p>The story of this singular insurrection has been
+preserved for us by the orations of the heathen
+sophist Libanius and by the homilies of the great
+Christian preacher, St. John Chrysostom, at that
+time a priest at Antioch, afterwards Patriarch of
+Constantinople.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Insurrection of Thessalonica, 390.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Brutal vengeance.</i></div>
+
+<p>The insurrection at Antioch displayed the character
+of Theodosius in a favourable light, as a strong but
+merciful and magnanimous ruler of men. Very different
+was the effect on his fame of the insurrection
+which broke out three years later (390) in the Macedonian
+city of Thessalonica. A garrison of Gothic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span><i>foederati</i> was quartered in this important city. Already
+it is probable that many causes of quarrel
+had arisen between the Thessalonians and their
+overbearing but under-educated guests. The wrath
+grew to its height when Botheric, the Gothic general,
+shut up in prison a certain scoundrel of a charioteer
+who had vilely insulted him. At the next races the
+mob of Thessalonica tumultuously demanded the
+charioteer’s liberation, and when Botheric refused,
+rose in insurrection and slew both him and several
+magistrates of the city. There was no such direct
+insult to the person of the Emperor as at Antioch,
+perhaps no such prolonged period of defiance to
+authority; but the affair reflected deep disgrace on
+the cruel, childish, show-loving Eastern provincials,
+and if the chief actors in it had been ordered off to
+instant execution, Theodosius would only have acted
+with praiseworthy severity. But he had now been
+for twelve years lord of the world, and the madness
+which absolute power so often brings with it had
+begun to work in his brain. In a frenzy of rage at
+the insult offered to himself in the person of his
+barbarian general, he sent his orders from Milan
+(where he was staying when the tidings reached him)
+that the whole city of Thessalonica should suffer for
+the misdeeds of its ruffianly mob. The soldiers
+surrounded the circus where the citizens were assembled,
+watching the games and unsuspecting of
+ill. They closed the gates, marched in amongst the
+densely-packed spectators, and began their bloody
+work. A certain number of heads was ordered to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>be brought to the officers, as if they had been thistles
+or dandelions to be gathered out of the fields. Was
+it 7000 as one historian says, or 15,000, as another?
+It matters not much: the horror of the thing was the
+brutal indiscriminateness of the massacre, the utter
+absence of any attempt to separate between the
+innocent and the guilty, the indifference to human
+life, more worthy of Tamerlane and his pyramid of
+skulls than of an Emperor of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Penitence of Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<p>It is true that this bloody deed was afterwards
+repented of in dust and ashes. The humiliation and
+penitence of Theodosius, his self-abasement before
+the great Christian hero, St. Ambrose, and the forgiveness
+which he at last received from him, form
+a well-known page in church history, and one
+which I do not propose now to retrace. But I
+cannot hold, as some of the ecclesiastical historians
+seem to do, that the depth of the Emperor’s subsequent
+humility hides the greatness of his crime.
+That he should have been even tempted to such a
+monstrous abuse of his absolute power, much more
+that he should have yielded to the temptation, marks
+him out as one of the Emperors who were unfit to
+govern, not only as immeasurably below a saint like
+Marcus Aurelius, or a statesman like Trajan, but
+almost as fit to be classed in the same category with
+Caligula, Nero, and Commodus.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>We return to our more special subject, the relation
+between Theodosius and the <i>foederati</i>. Twice
+he was able to employ his Gothic soldiers with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>striking success in the internal struggles of the
+Empire. The situation was thus very similar to
+that which we have seen in our own day in our
+Indian Empire, when the Sikhs, the fierce opponents
+of the English Raj in 1845, became its stalwart
+defenders in the terrible Mutiny of 1857.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Revolt of troops in Britain, 383.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Elevation of Maximus.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Gratian’s faults.</i></div>
+
+<p>In the year 383 a military revolt broke out in
+Britain against the young Emperor Gratian. Our
+island was ever the fruitful seed-plot of these military
+mutinies. The soldiers, shut up in their camps
+on our solitary moors, and deeming themselves cut
+off from the civilised world&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>&#x2060;, probably exaggerated
+every hardship of their service, and welcomed any
+change which would take them southwards, were it
+even in the track of an usurper and a tyrant. Perhaps,
+too, there was something then as now in the
+disposition of the Celts by whom they were surrounded,
+and with whom many of them had intermarried,
+favourable to anarchy and fatal to that
+reverence for law and discipline which is needed to
+hold together either an army or a state. Whatever
+the cause, the army revolted and proclaimed
+Magnus Clemens Maximus, Emperor. He was, like
+Theodosius, a native of Spain, and though harsh and
+perhaps rapacious, a man of ability and experience,
+not unworthy of the purple if he had come to it by
+lawful means&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a>&#x2060;. Gratian on his side had evidently
+given some real cause for dissatisfaction to his subjects.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>Ammianus, who was a good judge of character,
+says of him that ‘while the youthful down was
+yet on his cheeks he showed promise of emulating
+the best of the Emperors, if he had not given his
+mind too much to sport, and under the influence of
+frivolous companions followed too much the example
+of Commodus in his dissipation though not in his
+cruelty. He delighted to pierce the greatest possible
+number of beasts before the eyes of the people,
+and when he had given a fatal wound to each one
+of a hundred lions let loose from many doors all
+round the amphitheatre (not needing to hit any
+beast twice), he would exult as if he were something
+more than man. Thus he would spend whole days
+within these vast preserves which were called <i>vivaria</i>,
+slaying savage beasts with his multitudinous
+arrows. And this at a time when even the patient
+earnestness of a Marcus Aurelius would have been
+all too little for the sad necessities of the Empire&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a>&#x2060;.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>383-7.</i></div>
+
+<p>But there was another grievance besides Gratian’s
+love for sport, and that was his fondness for the
+barbarians. He, too, like Theodosius, had his petted
+barbarian guard, but instead of being Goths they
+belonged to the less civilised race of the Alani. We
+are told by another author&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> ‘that Gratian neglected
+the army and preferred a few of the Alans, whom by
+lavish pay he had attracted to his service, to the old
+Roman soldiery, and was so fascinated by the companionship,
+and one might almost say friendship of
+these barbarians, that he sometimes on the march
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>even adopted their dress. By all this he aroused
+the hatred of the soldiers against himself.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Gratian.</i></div>
+
+<p>An Emperor of barbarians, an Emperor who was
+spending his days in shooting wild beasts while the
+Empire was languishing under taxes within and the
+attacks of savages from without,—that was the aspect
+which, with many noble and loveable qualities,
+Gratian bore to his Western subjects: and hence it
+was that when Maximus with the army of Britain
+landed in Gaul, he shook down the fabric of his
+power without difficulty. Gratian, finding himself
+deserted by his troops, escaped from the battle-field,
+but was overtaken and killed at Lyons.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Maximus dethrones Valentinian II, 387.</i></div>
+
+<p>For more than four years Maximus, satisfied with
+ruling over the three great Western provinces which
+had fallen to the share of Gratian, maintained at
+any rate the appearance of harmony with his two
+colleagues, and the <span class="smcap">Concordia Auggg</span> was still capable
+of being commemorated on the Imperial medals.
+At length, in the autumn of 387, Maximus deemed
+that the time had come for grasping the whole
+Empire of the West. Lulling to sleep the suspicions
+of Valentinian and his mother by embassies
+and protestations of friendship, he crossed the Alps
+with an army and marched towards Aquileia, where
+the young Emperor was then dwelling in order to
+be as near as possible to the dominions of his
+friendly colleague and protector. Valentinian did
+not await the approach of his rival, but going down
+to the port of Grado, took ship and sailed for Thessalonica,
+his mother and sisters accompanying him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Valentinian’s appeal for help to Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Emperor and the Senate of Constantinople
+met the Imperial fugitives at Thessalonica, and discussed
+the present position of affairs. The Senate
+seconded the entreaties of Valentinian and his
+mother, and cried out for vengeance on the murderer
+of one Emperor and the despoiler of another.
+Theodosius, who was sincerely averse to war, as his
+detractors said through indolence, but more probably
+through that knowledge of the risks and
+miseries of war which even the most successful
+general cannot fail to acquire, spoke in favour of
+peace, and then of course all warlike views were
+hushed.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this Justina, who was the widow of two
+Emperors&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>&#x2060;, and in whose countenance still lingered
+the traces of the extraordinary beauty which had
+fascinated Valentinian I, fell on her knees before
+Theodosius and besought him not to allow the
+murder of Gratian to remain unavenged, nor the
+family of his former benefactor to be utterly ruined.
+And then she pointed to her daughter Galla,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Matre pulchra filia pulchrior,’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">who was bathed in tears, lamenting the misfortunes
+of her house. What the entreaties of the mother
+might have failed to effect, the tears of the daughter
+accomplished. Theodosius, whose wife Flaccilla
+had died two years before (385), took Galla for his
+second wife, and vowed to avenge her wrongs and
+replace her brother on the throne.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Civil War between Theodosius and Maximus, 388.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Defeat and death of Maximus. 28 July, 388.</i></div>
+
+<p>He was some time in preparing for the campaign,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>but, when it was opened, he conducted it with vigour
+and decision. His troops pressed up the Save
+valley, defeated those of Maximus in two engagements,
+entered Aemona (Laybach) in triumph, and
+soon stood before the walls of Aquileia, behind
+which Maximus was sheltering himself. The city
+was a strong and almost impregnable one, but a
+mutiny among the troops of Maximus did away with
+the necessity for a siege. The soldiers of Theodosius
+poured into the city, whose gates had been opened
+to them by the mutineers, and dragged off the
+usurper, barefooted, with tied hands, in slave’s
+attire, to the tribunal of Theodosius and his young
+brother-in-law at the third milestone from the city.
+After Theodosius had in a short harangue reproached
+him with the evil deeds which he had
+wrought against the Roman commonwealth, he
+handed him over to the executioner, by whom he
+was at once put to death.</p>
+
+<p>There can be little doubt that the rapid and successful
+movements of Theodosius in this campaign
+were due in part to the well-trained valour of his
+<i>foederati</i>. We have, however, a more distinct allusion
+to their services in the next civil war, which
+was fought six years afterwards on almost the same
+battle-ground.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Valentinian II restored in the West.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>His factotum Arbogast.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>392. Quarrels between Valentinian and Arbogast.</i></div>
+
+<p>On the overthrow of Maximus, Theodosius had
+with generous magnanimity handed over to Valentinian
+II the whole of the Western Empire, both,
+his own especial share and that which had formerly
+been held by his brother Gratian. The young
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>Emperor was now seventeen years of age: his
+mother, Justina, had died apparently on the eve of
+Theodosius’s victory, and he governed, or tried to
+govern, alone. He seems to have taken up his
+residence at Trier, the defence of the Gaulish
+provinces being doubtless recognised as at this time
+the chief duty of an Emperor of the West. But the
+actual functions of supreme ruler were discharged,
+not by this young and somewhat pliable Emperor,
+but by a Frankish veteran who stood beside his
+throne, moving legions and appointing and displacing
+generals at his will. I mentioned that
+during the sickness of Theodosius the war in
+Thrace was successfully conducted by two Frankish
+lieutenants of Gratian, by name Bauto and
+Arbogast. Bauto died about the year 385, and
+from that time onwards supreme power in the
+dominions of Valentinian had been more and more
+accumulating itself in the hands of the other great
+Frankish general, Arbogast, a man adored by his
+soldiers for his valour and experience in war, and
+for his noble disdain of riches. This man was
+apparently true to the Empire, true at first in his
+own rough way to the house of Valentinian. He
+had followed the young Emperor to exile, and after
+the victory at Aemona it was his hand that deprived
+the young Victor, son of the usurper, of life. But
+knowing his infinite superiority in all the arts of
+war and government to the young Adonis who was
+nominally his master, he took no pains to conceal
+that superiority, and sometimes in the council
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>chamber itself openly opposed and scoffed at the
+proposals of the Emperor. In short, this Frankish
+warrior was already anticipating by three centuries
+the attitude of the Frankish Mayors of the Palace
+towards the Merovingian monarchs. At length Valentinian,
+unable to bear the barbarian’s insolence
+any longer, one day when he was sitting on his
+imperial throne, summoning up as much sternness
+as he could into his boyish countenance, presented
+Arbogast with a written dismissal from his command
+as <i>Magister Equitum</i>. With calm contempt Arbogast
+tore the paper in pieces. ‘You never gave me this
+command,’ said he, ‘nor will you be able to take it
+from me.’ Valentinian drew a sword against the
+general as he turned to depart, but the attendant to
+whom it belonged checked him from using it. Hearing
+the struggle Arbogast returned and asked what
+the Emperor had been trying to do. ‘To slay myself,’
+moaned the miserable Valentinian, ‘because
+although Emperor I have no power&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>&#x2060;.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Valentinian II, 15 May, 392.</i></div>
+
+<p>From this day there was open enmity between
+Valentinian and his Master of the Horse: and not
+long after, when the young Emperor was bathing in
+the Rhone, near Vienne, some of the servants of
+Arbogast, in the absence of his body-guard who had
+gone away to dinner, rushed upon him and strangled
+him. They then tied a handkerchief round his
+neck and hung him to a tree, that it might appear
+that he had committed suicide. It was generally
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>understood, however, that the death of Valentinian
+was in truth the deed of Arbogast.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Eugenius Emperor, 392-394.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Galla, 394.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Frankish general, who durst not shock the
+prejudices of the Roman world by himself assuming
+the purple, hung that dishonoured robe upon the
+shoulders of a rhetorician, a confidant, and almost
+a dependent of his own, named Eugenius. This
+man, like most of the scholars and rhetoricians of
+the day, had not abjured the old faith of Hellas.
+As Arbogast also was a heathen, though worshipping
+Teutonic rather than Olympian gods, this last
+revolution looked like a recurrence to the days of
+Julian, and threatened the hardly-won supremacy
+of Christianity. Thus not only the sad voice of his
+wife Galla pleading for vengeance on her brother’s
+murderers, but, even more, the pious exhortations of
+all Christian bishops called on Theodosius to rescue
+the Western Empire from the hands of the sophist
+and the barbarian. Yet his preparations had to be
+long and careful, for he was aware that in Arbogast
+he would meet a general who knew as much of the
+art of war as himself, perhaps we might say that he
+should meet the greatest captain of the age. He left
+not Thrace till June, 394, nearly two years after the
+death of Valentinian, and meanwhile, on the very
+eve of his departure his young wife Galla died,
+leaving a little daughter, whose name afterwards was
+famous in the story of the Empire, Galla Placidia.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theodosius marches against Eugenius. 394.</i></div>
+
+<p>Giving but one day to sorrow and the next
+to vengeance, Theodosius marched north-westwards,
+as before, up the valley of the Save, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>to the city of Aemona. Not there did he meet his
+foes, but at a place about thirty miles off, half-way
+between Aemona and Aquileia, where the Julian
+Alps are crossed, and where a little stream called
+the Frigidus (now the Wipbach) burst suddenly
+from a limestone hill. Here, then, the battle was
+joined between Eugenius with his Frankish patron
+and Theodosius with his 20,000 Gothic <i>foederati</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a>
+and the rest of the army of the East. Gainas, Saul,
+Bacurius, Alaric were the chief leaders of the Teutonic
+troops.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Battle of the Frigidus, 5 and 6 Sept. 394.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Eugenius and Arbogast.</i></div>
+
+<p>The first day of battle fell heavily on the <i>foederati</i>
+of Theodosius, half of whom were left dead upon the
+field. It seemed as if the West were going once more
+to triumph over the East, as if heathenism might even
+once more gain the ascendant over Christianity.
+That night, however, in prayer Theodosius had a
+vision of the Apostles John and Philip, who cheered
+him on with the assurance of victory. Next day
+Theodosius succeeded in detaching part of the army
+of his rival from their allegiance; and even the elements
+seemed eager to aid his victory. The impetuous
+<i>Bora</i>, a wind well known in that region,
+sprang up from the hills in the rear of his army and
+carried their arrows and their javelins with resistless
+force into the ranks of the enemy, whose own missiles
+recoiled helplessly on themselves. The battle was
+won after a terrible struggle. Eugenius was taken
+prisoner and carried bound into the presence of
+Theodosius, who upbraided him with his heathenism
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>and his share in the murder of Valentinian.
+While he was grovelling at the proud conqueror’s
+feet and begging for mercy, a soldier cut off his head
+and carried it round the field of battle on a pole to
+show the vanquished army that their Emperor was
+slain. Arbogast wandered about for some days
+among the rugged mountain-defiles, and then fell
+upon his sword and perished.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Theodosius, 17 Jan. 395.</i></div>
+
+<p>Theodosius, who was still in the prime of life, had
+now indeed ‘the rule of the world,’ without a rival or
+a colleague except his own boyish sons. The Church
+and the federated Goths, two of the most powerful
+forces in the Empire, were both devotedly attached
+to him; and the Provincials, though groaning under
+the weight of the taxes which he imposed, feared, and
+perhaps admired him. Had his life been prolonged
+as it well might have been for twenty or thirty years
+longer, many things might have gone differently
+in the history of the world. But, little more than
+four months after the victory of the Frigidus, Theodosius
+died of dropsy at Milan, his constitution being
+prematurely worn out by the hardships of his last
+campaign, and possibly by the high feasting and
+revelry which had resounded through his palace at
+Constantinople. He had probably not yet completed
+his fiftieth year.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Character of Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<p>The character of Theodosius is one of the most
+perplexing in history. The Church historians have
+hardly a word of blame for him except in the matter
+of the massacre of Thessalonica, and that, as has
+been said, seems to be almost atoned for in their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>eyes by its perpetrator’s penitent submission to ecclesiastical
+censure. On the other hand, the heathen
+historians, represented by Zosimus, condemn in the
+most unmeasured terms his indolence, his love of
+pleasure, his pride, and hint at the scandalous immorality
+of his life. Varying a similar saying with
+reference to Constantine, we might say that he who
+believes all the evil that is said of Theodosius by
+Socrates, and all the good that is said of him by
+Zosimus, will not go far wrong. But this takes us
+only a little way, for the blame and the praise are
+both infinitesimal.</p>
+
+<p>He had one great work to do, the reconciliation
+of the Goths to the Empire, and he did that work
+well. It is perhaps unfair to judge of it by the slenderness
+of its permanent results, since his early death
+may have been the chief cause of its failure. But he
+was certainly passionate, egotistic, cruel. He spared
+not the pockets of his subjects, and his reign, like a
+heavy wheat-crop, exhausted the energies of his
+Empire. It is the fashion to call him the Great, and
+we may admit that he has as good a right to that
+title as Louis XIV, a monarch whom in some respects
+he pretty closely resembles. But it seems to
+me that it would be safer to withhold this title from
+both sovereigns, and to call them, not the Great, but
+the <i>Magnificent</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_V">LECTURE V.<br>
+<span class="smcap">Alaric.</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Arcadius and Honorius, sons of Theodosius.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Their incapacity.</i></div>
+
+<p>On the death of Theodosius (395) his two sons,
+Arcadius and Honorius, aged respectively eighteen
+and ten, succeeded to ‘the rule of the world,’ Arcadius
+dwelling at Constantinople and ruling the
+Eastern portion, while the Western fell to the share
+of Honorius, who at this time generally dwelt at
+Milan. Arcadius died in the year 408, at the age of
+thirty-one; Honorius in 423, at the age of thirty-nine.
+These two men were thus nominally at the
+head of human affairs during some of the most profoundly
+interesting and important events that have
+happened in the history of the world; yet few men
+have ever by their own force of character or strength
+of intellect exercised less influence on the destinies
+of the human race. Theodosius, with all his faults,
+interests the student of his reign: he was brilliant,
+forceful, and he makes a mark on the history of his
+time. The dulness of his sons’ characters is so
+portentous, that after the lapse of a millennium and
+a half the Muse of History still yawns at the remembrance
+of them. Arcadius had a beautiful
+Frankish wife, and left a son of artistic temperament,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>and four pious daughters. Honorius married his
+deceased wife’s sister and left no family, but was
+fond of keeping pigeons. These are pretty nearly
+all the facts that it is possible to ascertain or to
+remember out of the drizzling dulness of their
+personal history.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Administration of Rufinus and Stilicho.</i></div>
+
+<p>Theodosius, who probably saw the weakness of
+character of his sons, and who was leaving them at
+an age when even strong and capable natures would
+have required much help and guidance, entrusted
+the guardianship of the lads, and the virtual regency
+of the Empire, to Rufinus and Stilicho. The former,
+with the rank of Praetorian Prefect, administered
+the realm of Arcadius; the latter, as <i>Magister Utriusque
+Militiae</i>, governed the army and the people of
+Honorius.</p>
+
+<p>These two men resembled one another in one
+quality—an inordinate love of money, whether justly
+or unjustly acquired. In all other respects their
+characters were utterly dissimilar. Stilicho, though
+grasping and perhaps somewhat coarse-fibred, was a
+hero and a patriot; Rufinus (whom we unfortunately
+know only by the descriptions of his bitter enemies)
+may have had some administrative ability, but must
+have been a bad specimen even of the corrupt
+bureaucracy of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Dissimilar as was the character of the two men,
+so also was their origin and training. Stilicho was
+apparently of pure Teutonic extraction, the son of a
+Vandal chief who had commanded some barbarian
+auxiliaries in the army of the Emperor Valens.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>His tall and handsome presence had commended
+him to the favour of Serena, the favourite niece and
+trusted counsellor of Theodosius. His marriage
+with so near a relative of the Emperor naturally led
+to his speedy promotion. His employment on an
+embassy to the Persian king was followed by high
+military command. He showed indisputable talents
+for war in several campaigns against the barbarians,
+and, some years before the death of Theodosius, was
+raised to the highest of all military dignities—that of
+<i>Magister Utriusque Militiae</i> (Commander-in-Chief of
+Infantry and Cavalry).</p>
+
+<p>Of the early life of Rufinus we know but little.
+He was born at Elusa, a little town in the south-west
+corner of Gaul. He went to Constantinople,
+and there, by his obsequiousness, his perseverance,
+and doubtless also by his aptitude for the work of
+administration, succeeded in climbing from step to
+step of the official ladder. One or two old and faithful
+servants of the Empire (Tatianus and Proculus) who
+stood above him in rank, were cast down by his
+well-timed accusations of disloyalty, and at length
+the obscure Gaulish Provincial blazed forth to the
+world as Praetorian Prefect of the East—one of
+the wealthiest men in the Empire, a man who
+aspired to wear the diadem himself as colleague
+of Arcadius, and to obtain the Emperor’s hand in
+marriage for his daughter. Thus while Stilicho’s
+might be said to be the typical career of a robust,
+handsome, and warlike Teuton in the service of the
+Empire, the career of Rufinus was the equally
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>typical career of a clever, pushing, and unscrupulous
+Provincial.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Divergence between East and West.</i></div>
+
+<p>Between the two administrators of the realm—Rufinus
+and Stilicho—there was no cordiality, no
+chance of well-concerted action for the good of the
+Empire. In fact, quite independently of the personal
+characters of the two men, the interests of the
+two divisions of the Empire were now beginning
+manifestly to diverge. The older Rome looked
+down upon the new Rome by the Bosphorus as a
+mere Greek city, the home of sophists and chatterers;
+while Constantinople regarded the city of
+the Tiber, with its mouldering palaces, its desolate
+Campagna, its still half-heathen Senate, as a great
+stranded hulk, unfit any longer to bear the precious
+freight of Empire. This divergence between the
+hopes and wishes of the East and West, a divergence
+which was often on the point of becoming actual
+hostility, was wider for the first fifteen years after
+the death of Theodosius than for a considerable
+time before or after that interval, and promoted not
+a little the success of the barbarian movement against
+the Roman State.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric King of the Visigoths.</i></div>
+
+<p>That movement began very shortly after Theodosius
+was laid in his grave. It was in all probability
+in the spring of the year 395 that the Visigoths
+in Moesia raised the young Alaric upon a
+shield, and with joyful shouts acclaimed him as their
+king. We have already noticed this young Gothic
+chief as commanding a troop in the army of Theodosius
+at the battle of the Frigidus, and that is in fact
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>all that we know about him up to this date, except
+that he was born (probably between 360 and 370) in
+the island of Peuce at the mouth of the Danube, and
+that he was either himself surnamed Baltha (the
+Bold), or belonged to a clan of kings or chieftains
+who bore that name. As the Gothic historian says:
+‘As soon as Alaric was created king, deliberating
+with his people he persuaded them rather by their
+own labour to seek for kingdoms than quietly to lie
+down in subjection to strangers.’ In other words he
+decided, and persuaded them to decide, to abandon
+the easy but inglorious position of <i>foederati</i>, and
+cutting themselves loose from the old and decaying
+Empire, to hew out new realms for themselves with
+their own trusty broadswords. Towards this decision
+he was no doubt partly guided by what he had
+himself seen, when in the Imperial service, of the
+weakness of the legions, the unwarlike character of
+the Provincials of the Empire, the oppressions of
+the tax-gatherers which caused even the barbarians
+to seem welcome as deliverers from their yoke;
+above all by what he, and every officer of rank in
+the Roman army, knew of the discord and jealousy
+between the two chief ministers of the Empire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>395.</i></div>
+
+<p>The first blows of Alaric and his Goths were
+struck at the Eastern Empire. This was natural
+enough, since they were themselves settled within
+it: but there was another reason for the choice.
+The army which Theodosius had led with him across
+the Julian Alps seems not to have been dismissed to
+its Eastern cantonments during the few months
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>between the battle of the Frigidus and his death.
+It and the troops of Eugenius were now all collected
+in the north of Italy under the orders of
+Stilicho, who was thus in another than the official
+sense <i>Magister Utriusque Militiae</i>, since both the
+conquering and the conquered army of the late
+campaign received the watchword from him. A
+singular position certainly, and one which excuses
+some things otherwise difficult to justify in the conduct
+of Arcadius and his minister.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric strikes at the Eastern Empire.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Stilicho forbidden to repel the invasion.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric in Greece.</i></div>
+
+<p>Alaric, then, with his Gothic followers marched
+first towards Constantinople. Perhaps he had some
+hopes of taking the city by surprise, but if so he was
+disappointed. Rufinus, who, Provincial as he was,
+professed a certain fondness for the barbarians and
+imitated their dress and accoutrements, seems to
+have sought an interview with the Gothic king, and
+suggested to him that instead of undertaking a hopeless
+siege he would do well to turn his steps southwards,
+where he would reap abundance of spoil from
+the still undevastated plains of Greece. Alaric accepted
+the suggestion, and marched through Macedonia
+into Thessaly. There, however, his course
+was stayed for a while by the arrival of Stilicho,
+who, loyally fulfilling the behest of the dying Theodosius,
+had come with an army to deliver the invaded
+Empire from its foe. Before manœuvres had
+ceased and hard fighting had begun, there came a
+strange, and at first sight incomprehensible, message
+from the Eastern Court: ‘Let Stilicho withdraw the
+legions of Honorius within the limits of his master’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>Empire, and let the legions of the East be sent to
+their proper quarters at Constantinople.’ Loyally,
+but sadly, Stilicho obeyed the command, and thus
+the campaign of 395 closed, leaving Alaric in undisputed
+possession of the Greek peninsula. No Leonidas
+with his Three Hundred defended now Thermopylae,
+not even the easily held Isthmus of Corinth
+was occupied by troops. All over the sacred places
+of Grecian story, Delphi, Corinth, Argos, Sparta,
+the tall barbarians swarmed. Only Athens seems
+to have escaped comparatively unharmed, a deliverance
+which the heathen historian&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> attributes to
+the fact that when Alaric approached the city he
+saw Athene Promachus, in such guise as she is
+represented in her statue, going round about its
+towers, and Achilles, the hero, such as Homer
+painted him in his wrath for the death of Patroclus,
+standing before the walls. Those who doubt the
+truth of these apparitions may accept the theory that
+the Acropolis was too strong to be taken, and that
+Alaric, who was no mere barbarous destroyer, was
+induced, partly by a heavy ransom and partly by
+reverence for her old renown, to refrain from sacking
+a city which was illustrious and venerable rather
+than wealthy or strategically important.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>March of the recalled troops to Constantinople.</i></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the troops which had been ordered to
+Constantinople, and which were commanded by
+Gainas the Goth, had done a strange and fearful
+deed. They loved Stilicho, and cursed the order
+issued by the officials at Constantinople which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>parted them from his standards. Everywhere, as
+they marched through the Empire they heard execrations
+against the avarice and arrogance of the
+Gaulish upstart, who presumed, forsooth, to put
+himself forward as a suitable colleague for the Emperor.
+And, most important of all, their leader,
+Gainas the Goth, aspired to play at Constantinople
+the same part which Stilicho the Vandal was playing
+at Milan. The soldiers said to one another that
+when Rufinus met them at Constantinople he should
+have a reception that he little expected.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The review.</i></div>
+
+<p>When they reached the Capital they were drawn
+up in a great plain near the city, and Arcadius, with
+Rufinus by his side, came thither to review them.
+The two stood upon a high platform, conspicuous to
+all, and those who were nearest could see Rufinus
+plucking the Emperor’s mantle and evidently desiring
+him to fulfil some promise which he had made
+and to utter some oration to the army. In this
+oration, could it have been delivered, the simple-minded
+Arcadius, who would have done anything
+which his minister commanded, was to have presented
+Rufinus to the army as his colleague in the
+Empire. Then, had the programme been fulfilled,
+the soldiers would have clashed their swords upon
+their shields and shouted ‘Ave Imperator’: the
+minister would have come forward and offered them
+a liberal donative, and Rufinus Augustus would
+have struck his coins commemorating his Justice,
+his Temperance, and the Concord of the Emperors.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Rufinus.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such was the programme of the day’s proceedings,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>but what actually occurred was very different from
+this. While the promised oration was still lingering
+on the lips of the scared and helpless Emperor, the
+army stretched forth both its wings and folded the
+high tribunal in a narrower and ever narrower embrace.
+Threatening gestures were made, and murmurs,
+not of acclamation, were heard. Soon the dreadful
+truth flashed upon Rufinus that he was surrounded,
+not by friends eager to be his subjects, but by
+enemies thirsting for his blood. A soldier stepped
+forth from the ranks, and mounting the platform,
+thrust him through with his sword, saying, ‘With
+this sword Stilicho strikes thee.’ Then the barbarians
+and the barbarised Roman soldiers carried
+the head of Rufinus round the city on a pole, strewed
+his limbs in fragments over the fields, and showed
+to every passer-by the dead hand opening and closing
+upon imaginary coins, while his mock courtiers
+shouted ‘Give, give to the Insatiable.’</p>
+
+<p>Even the heavy soul of Arcadius must have felt
+some stirrings of horror and resentment at such a
+tragedy enacted in his own sacred presence, but he
+passed at once under the dominion of other masters
+whose fortunes we cannot here follow. Gainas the
+Goth, Eutropius the Eunuch, Eudoxia the beautiful
+Empress, daughter of the Frankish general Bauto,
+kept up a vivid game of Court intrigue, and disputed
+with varying success for the chief place in that
+empty chamber which represented the mind of the
+Emperor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>396. Second campaign of Stilicho against Alaric, 396.</i></div>
+
+<p>We return to Alaric and his invasion of the Peloponnesus.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>Any dreams which he may have nourished
+of establishing his kingdom by the banks of the
+Eurotas or Cephissus were dispelled by the second
+appearance of Stilicho, who, this time apparently at
+the earnest request of Arcadius, brought the army of
+Honorius for the deliverance of Greece. No great
+battle was fought, but Stilicho, who was evidently a
+great master of strategy, penned up his antagonist in
+the valleys of Arcadia. From this difficult position,
+however, he allowed him to escape, whether through
+mere carelessness, through fear of driving a powerful
+foe to despair, by a tacit agreement that if liberated
+he should at once evacuate Greece, or from what
+other motive it is impossible now to say. The
+enemies of Stilicho always asserted that both on this
+and other occasions he refrained from crushing
+Alaric when he had the power to do so, in order
+that he, as the only general who could successfully
+cope with him, might never find his services superfluous.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric as Roman governor of Illyricum. 396-400.</i></div>
+
+<p>On evacuating Greece, Alaric with his Goths did
+not relapse into the position of a Fritigern or an
+Athanaric. Another plan for the future had now
+opened itself before him. As the time was not yet
+come for conquering kingdoms he would accept once
+more, in seeming, the position of a captain of <i>foederati</i>,
+but in such circumstances as to be still practically
+independent of the Empire. The part of the
+Prefecture of Illyricum which had fallen to the
+share of Arcadius consisted in its northern portion
+of the so-called Diocese of Dacia, nearly corresponding
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>to the present kingdoms of Servia and Bosnia.
+Over this eastern Illyricum Alaric was placed as
+governor by the ministers of Arcadius. The precise
+official title which he bore is not mentioned. He
+may have been <i>Vicarius Daciae</i> or <i>Dux Daciae et
+Moesiae Primae</i>: but his power is undoubted. For
+the next four or five years he wielded all the
+enormous powers, both civil and military, of a
+Roman Imperial governor. He enlisted recruits,
+he managed arsenals, he collected taxes, though
+what proportion of the taxes so collected found its
+way into the Treasury of Byzantium no historian
+has told us.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Advantages of this position.</i></div>
+
+<p>The especial advantage to Alaric of his position in
+this corner of Illyricum was that it enabled him to
+profit to the full by the discord existing between the
+two sections of the Empire, and at his pleasure to
+threaten either. He could with almost equal ease
+move southwards upon Macedon and Thrace and
+threaten Constantinople, or north-westwards to the
+Julian Alps, and so descend into Italy. This advantage
+is emphatically alluded to by a contemporary
+poet&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a>&#x2060;, who represents Stilicho as saying of him—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Discord ’twixt East and West and mutual wrong,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Not his own strength, has shielded him so long;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">While he, deceitful, pledged his faith to both,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And sold to each by turns his perjured oath.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yet doubtless during these years of repose his
+thoughts were turning with increased frequency to
+the West rather than to the East. He knew, none
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>better, the matchless strength of the situation of
+Constantinople. He suspected, if he did not know,
+the comparative weakness of Rome. Moesia and
+Thrace had been wandered over for years by the
+wasting bands of his countrymen, while Italy, so
+long the wealthy mistress of the world, was still unravaged.
+Above all he had already begun to hear a
+voice—like that which other makers of history, beings
+such as Mohammed, Joan of Arc, Savonarola listened
+to—telling them of great deeds set before them which
+they should one day accomplish. And this voice—call
+it by what name we may, it is vouched for by
+contemporary evidence <i>before</i> its prediction was accomplished—said
+ever in his ears, ‘Alaric, delay not.
+Thou shalt penetrate to the City’&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>&#x2060;—the awful and
+still inviolate majesty of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric’s first invasion of Italy, 400-403.</i></div>
+
+<p>At length in the year 400 the thunder-cloud burst.
+Alaric, with the whole nation which obeyed him, the
+women and children in the great Gothic waggons,
+the warriors on their war-horses, moved slowly up
+the valley of the Save, crossed the Julian Alps, and
+by the way which he had learned when he rode in
+the train of Theodosius, descended upon Italy. At
+the same time, there is reason to think, another troop
+of Goths, possibly belonging to the Ostrogothic section
+of the people, entered Italy under the leadership
+of Radagaisus, but of their movements we have no
+information, and even the fact of their invasion is
+not generally admitted by historians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of the three or four years (400-403) that Alaric
+spent in Italy during this invasion, we have the
+slenderest and most tantalisingly imperfect information
+from our authorities. We can say certainly that
+he did not reach Rome, probably did not cross the
+Apennines. There are dim rumours of a battle, a
+Roman defeat, somewhere near Aquileia. Then
+there is an inexplicable delay. During the whole of
+the year 401 Alaric appears to linger in Venetia and
+the valley of the Po, while Stilicho is fighting with
+some enemies (possibly Radagaisus and his Ostrogoths)
+in Raetia, and drawing in troops from the
+Rhine, and even from Britain, for the defence of the
+menaced capital. It was at this time that the Twentieth
+Legion was withdrawn from the cantonments
+which it had for centuries occupied at Chester, but
+to which it never returned.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Honorius retires to Ravenna.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>402-752.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Emperor Honorius seems to have been besieged
+by Alaric either at Milan or the not distant
+city of Asta. If thus menaced, he at any rate
+sustained no actual injury; but the shock to his
+Imperial nerves of seeing the yellow-haired barbarians
+under the walls of his city had been so
+severe that he migrated to Ravenna, which strong
+city, effectually sheltered from every land-attack by
+the network of rivers and canals which surrounded
+it, was from henceforth for three centuries and a half
+the regular residence of Roman Emperors, Ostrogothic
+Kings, and Byzantine Exarchs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Battle of Pollentia. 4 Apr. 402.</i></div>
+
+<p>At last, at Eastertide in the year 402, the armies
+of Stilicho and Alaric met in battle at Pollentia, a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>city of what is now Piedmont, about twenty miles
+south-east of Turin. The accounts of the battle are
+very conflicting, but it was probably a defeat, though
+not a decisive defeat, of the Goths. The advantage
+was gained by a piece of sharp practice which was
+hardly worthy of the troops of a Christian Emperor.
+It was Good Friday, and Alaric—an Arian, but a
+zealous Christian—was celebrating the great event
+of Calvary in the usual manner, and not dreaming
+of battles, when one of Stilicho’s officers, an Alan
+and a heathen, named Saulus, led an impetuous
+charge of cavalry against the Gothic army, and compelled
+it to turn from prayer to fighting. Saulus
+himself fell at the very beginning of the engagement,
+and the cavalry wavered; but Stilicho and the legions
+of the centre restored the battle, and, perhaps, won
+the victory. But that the barbarian should have
+been forced against his will to fight on the most
+solemn fast-day of the Christian calendar was accounted
+a blot on the fair fame of Stilicho, and was
+not forgotten when the day of reckoning came
+between him and his enemies at the Imperial
+Court.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric retires from Italy, 403.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>406.</i></div>
+
+<p>Another defeat, a doubtful defeat, of the Goths at
+Verona seems to have ended the war. In the year
+403 Alaric made his way back out of Italy, probably
+over the Brenner Pass. He had not this time
+‘penetrated to the City’: he had lost some of his
+treasure, the spoils of preceding years, and, according
+to one account, his wife even had fallen into the
+enemy’s hands. In itself the expedition had proved
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>fruitless and inglorious enough, but it was the parent
+of mighty results; for doubtless in consequence of
+the withdrawal of the Imperial forces from the
+Rhine, a multitude of barbarous hordes—Vandals,
+Alans, and Suevi—poured from Germany into Gaul,
+and that fair province, the keystone of the arch
+of the Western Prefecture, was henceforward virtually
+lost to the Empire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Invasion of Radagaisus, 405.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Radagaisus shut up near Fiesole.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Radagaisus slain and his army sold into slavery.</i></div>
+
+<p>Two years after Alaric’s departure from Italy,
+his confederate Radagaisus returned to it, having
+200,000 Goths (probably Ostrogoths) in his train.
+This man was spoken of with terror as ‘by far the
+most savage of all the ancient or modern enemies
+of Rome.’ He was a Pagan, and a rumour was
+spread abroad that he had vowed to offer to his
+country’s savage gods the blood of the whole
+Roman people as an acceptable drink-offering.
+The impending heathenism without gave a despairing
+courage to the yet unsubdued heathenism within.
+The little knot of senators and their clients who
+still adhered to the ancient faith (which died out
+more slowly in Rome than anywhere else) dared
+to lift up their voices and openly assert that all
+these troubles were coming upon the State because
+she had left her old moorings, and because Jupiter
+Capitolinus and his family of gods were no longer
+receiving their ancient honours. However, there
+was not time for this party to effect a religious
+counter-revolution before deliverance came. If Radagaisus
+actually appeared under the walls of the
+City (which is doubtful), he soon departed and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>marched northwards into the rich land of Etruria.
+Stilicho followed him with an army, in which Uldin
+the Hun and Sarus the Goth were conspicuous
+figures. Once again he played that clever strategic
+game which he had probably learnt from Theodosius,
+and which he had already twice successfully
+practised against Alaric in Greece and in Italy.
+He ‘shut him up,’ we are told, in that circle of
+mountains which surrounds Fiesole and looks down
+on Florence. Skilfully-posted detachments of troops
+prevented the savage invaders from piercing at any
+point through the iron girdle that encompassed them;
+and this result being satisfactorily attained, of course
+the hugeness of the host only hastened the inevitable
+surrender. While the wild horde of Ostrogoths
+were starving in famished Fiesole, the soldiers of
+Stilicho were living in comfort—feasting, gaming,
+singing their rough camp-songs—but a sufficient
+number of them ever watching that none of the
+barbarians should creep over the mountains and
+escape. Before long the end came. Radagaisus,
+trying to steal forth by himself from the trap into
+which he and his followers had fallen, stumbled
+upon one of Stilicho’s outposts, was brought before
+his conqueror, and, after a few days’ interval, was
+put to death. The multitude which had accompanied
+him into Italy, with proud dreams of conquest and
+plunder, surrendering themselves at last to their
+watchful enemies, were all sold as slaves. So
+glutted was the market by their numbers that
+thousands of them fetched no more than an <i>aureus</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>(twelve shillings) apiece. But so long had the brave
+Teutons delayed their surrender, that even the
+food which their new masters gave them came, in
+the majority of cases, too late to save their lives;
+and the greedy purchaser found in thousands of
+instances that his <i>aureus</i> procured for him only the
+obligation to bury a starved-out Ostrogoth.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Nature of the manœuvre by which Radagaisus was defeated.</i></div>
+
+<p>The fact that both Theodosius and the captain
+who had been formed in his school practised so
+often and so triumphantly this manœuvre of ‘shutting
+up’ the Goths suggests a question as to the reason
+of its success. We must remember that the armies
+which followed Fritigern, Alaric, and Radagaisus
+were, for the most part, <i>nation-armies</i>, encumbered
+with women and children, old men and other non-combatants,
+for whose conveyance a long train of
+waggons was needed. The Goths had no doubt
+some horses, since we hear of their cavalry, but they
+do not seem to have been essentially an equestrian
+nation; and their cavalry evidently lacked rapidity
+and nimbleness of movement, which was the cause
+of their defeat by the Huns.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>408.</i></div>
+
+<p>So long as they could confine themselves to the
+great plains of the Danube and the Po, the overpowering
+numbers of this human torrent made them
+terrible and victorious; and even the waggons were
+useful, since when formed in square they made a
+rough but safe encampment. But when the time
+came for this nation-army to penetrate from one
+river-system to another, to cross the soaring range of
+the Balkans or the Apennines, then their difficulties
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>began. Their deficiency of light cavalry prevented
+them from reconnoitring well their ground, and obtaining
+(in those mapless days) the much-needed
+information as to the easiest passes and the most
+fruitful valleys. Soon there would be stragglers
+from the main host, and then petty and harassing
+skirmishes to defend those stragglers. The great
+cumbrous waggons would stick in morasses. There
+would be night-alarms, and in the stampede of
+cattle and flying men, many would be dashed down
+precipitous ravines or swallowed up in swollen rivers.
+By gentle but judicious pressure the Imperial general
+would succeed in forcing the unwieldy procession
+into some bay among the mountains carefully selected
+beforehand, whence exit for heavily armed warriors,
+for horses and for waggons was only possible by two
+or three well-defined passes. Then, if he could only
+keep strict watch enough, his task was accomplished.
+He would station his bravest soldiers, Huns very
+likely, or even Gothic <i>foederati</i> on whose fidelity he
+could depend, at the mouths of these passes, and
+wait for hunger to do its swift work upon the cattle,
+upon the little children, upon the women; till at
+length thousands of brave men who longed for
+nothing so much as the opportunity to die fighting,
+found even this denied them, and had to surrender
+themselves and be sold as slaves to cultivate the lands
+of some Roman lord whose dainty life one blow from
+a Gothic fist would have at once annihilated.</p>
+
+<p>This picture is chiefly an imaginary one&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>&#x2060;, but those
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>who remember the terrible scenes which marked the
+destruction of the British army in the Khyber Pass
+will, I think, recognise its probable truth.</p>
+
+<p>We pass over three years and come to 408. Honorius,
+who was aged twenty-three, had now been for
+thirteen years the nominal ruler of the West. During
+the whole of that time the administration of affairs
+and the supreme command of armies had been in the
+hands of Stilicho, who, notwithstanding some blunders
+and some crimes, had upon the whole proved himself
+equal to the Herculean task which the weight of the
+falling Empire had brought upon him, and had
+certainly by his military genius marked himself out
+as the only champion fit to contend successfully with
+Alaric. This champion, through a sinister combination
+of fatuity, intolerance, and spite, was now struck
+down by the Emperor himself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Revolt of Constantine in Britain, 407.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>408. Negotiations between Stilicho and Alaric.</i></div>
+
+<p>The circumstances of the Empire were more than
+ever difficult and perplexing. The usual British
+pretender to the purple had appeared in the shape of
+a private soldier named Constantine, whom (chiefly
+on account of his distinguished name) the legions
+still remaining in Britain had hailed as Imperator,
+and under whose command they had crossed over
+into Gaul to contend for such fragments of that
+wealthy province as still remained Roman, amid
+the generally pervading swarm of Franks, Vandals,
+Alans, and Alamanni. In the East the relations
+with Arcadius had been growing steadily worse for
+years. The present subject of contention was a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>claim—a preposterous claim as it seems to me—on
+the part of the Western Empire for the possession
+of the whole instead of a mere half of the Prefecture
+of Illyricum. In support of this claim Alaric, who
+seems to have been in frequent, almost confidential,
+communication with Stilicho ever since his last
+invasion of Italy, had been engaged by that minister
+to commence a joint invasion of the Eastern Empire.
+The project was, however, abandoned owing to the
+persuasions of Serena, the wife of Stilicho, who
+appears in all good faith to have exerted her influence
+with her husband and her Imperial cousins in order
+to prevent the outbreak of war between Arcadius
+and Honorius. But Alaric, dissatisfied with such a
+termination of the affair which left him and his
+followers without their stipulated guerdon, suddenly
+appeared at Aemona (Laybach) in a threatening
+attitude, and demanded compensation for the trouble
+and expense to which he had been put in preparing
+for the abandoned expedition.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric’s claim for compensation.</i></div>
+
+<p>This extraordinary claim was brought by Stilicho
+before the Senate at Rome, and was supported by
+his own voice and by an easily procured letter from
+Honorius. Against such powerful advocates who
+could plead? The Conscript Fathers decided that
+4000 pounds weight of gold (£160,000 sterling)
+should be paid over to Alaric in consideration of his
+not making war on either portion of the Empire.
+One Senator alone, a man of high rank named
+Lampadius, uttered an indignant exclamation&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a>&#x2060;, ‘This
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>is no peace, but a selling of ourselves into slavery’;
+but fearing punishment for his boldness, when the
+Senate was broken up he took refuge in a neighbouring
+church, the sanctity of whose asylum seems
+to have preserved him from punishment&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>&#x2060;.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Danger of Stilicho’s position.</i></div>
+
+<p>It might seem that a minister who could thus impose
+his will on Emperor and Senate could do anything,
+but in fact the position of Stilicho was already
+undermined. His daughter Maria, wife of the
+Emperor, had died, and the docile Honorius had
+acquiesced in the command to marry her sister
+Thermantia; but it seems possible to discern in his
+feeble soul some faint struggles of revolt against the
+yoke which the Stilichonian family, especially his
+mother-in-law, Serena, imposed upon him. In the
+legions, the regular Roman part of the army, there
+was an increasing feeling of bitterness against the
+favours shown, doubtless deservedly, to the Teutonic
+<i>foederati</i>. ‘Count Stilicho,’ they said one to another,
+‘is after all a Vandal by birth, Sarus is a Goth,
+Uldin is a Hun. All the high commands are being
+monopolised by men whose fathers were skin-clothed
+barbarians. We are Romans, the sons of the comrades
+of Romulus, scions of the race that has conquered
+the world, yet we are nothing in our own land.’
+Side by side with this military discontent, there was
+also ecclesiastical dissatisfaction. Stilicho, if not
+actually an Arian, pretty certainly threw his influence
+into the scale against the persecuting edicts and civil
+disabilities which the orthodox party were endeavouring
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>to persuade the Emperor to hurl at the heretics.
+A rumour was also spread abroad—the truth or the
+origin of which it is impossible now to ascertain—that
+his son Eucherius shared that devotion to the
+old idolatry which, as has been said, lingered on so
+long among the nobility of Rome. Whatever the
+truth of that rumour may have been, another report
+which was industriously brought under the notice of
+Honorius, that Stilicho was scheming to secure the
+diadem for his son, was almost certainly unfounded.
+In point of fact the great minister had shown singular
+moderation in reference to the advancement of this
+son, who at this time held only the unimportant
+office of <i>Tribunus Notariorum</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Arcadius, 1 May, 408.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Honorius in the camp at Ticinum.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Mutiny at Ticinum.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such was already the thunderous state of the atmosphere
+of the Court when news reached Ravenna
+of the death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius. Both
+Honorius and Stilicho seem to have desired the
+office of guardian to the young Theodosius, son of
+Arcadius, and to have proposed to go to Constantinople
+to claim it. Stilicho had not much difficulty
+in dissuading the timid and parsimonious Honorius
+from the dangers and expense of the journey, but he
+could not allay the suspicions which his own eagerness
+for the office had excited, that he was again
+striving in an underhand way to procure either the
+Eastern or the Western diadem for the young Pagan,
+Eucherius. There was a certain officer of the Imperial
+guard named Olympius, ‘a man who, under
+the guise of devotion to Christianity, concealed every
+kind of wickedness,’ who was perpetually whispering
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>into the Emperor’s ear the danger to religion from
+this ambition of Stilicho. A camp had been formed
+at Ticinum (Pavia), for the soldiers who were to
+march into Gaul to quell the revolt of Constantine.
+To this camp, which seems to have contained a large
+preponderance of Roman-born soldiers, Honorius
+set forth accompanied by Olympius; and Stilicho,
+who had thus allowed his most useful instrument to
+be purloined from him, lingered in a curious state
+of irresolution and inactivity with his <i>foederati</i> round
+him at Bologna. Soon the news came of a terrible
+mutiny of the troops at Ticinum. Olympius had been
+ingratiating himself with the soldiers in every possible
+way, visiting those who were sick, and on every
+occasion letting fall words of sympathy for their
+hardships, and indignation at the partiality which
+constantly postponed their interests to those of the
+barbarian favourites of Stilicho. These hints, coming
+from an officer of the Imperial guard and a manifest
+favourite of the Emperor, had produced their natural
+effect. There had been what in Spanish politics
+is called a <i>pronunciamento</i>. The soldiers had risen
+in rebellion, slain four officers of the highest rank in
+the army and four heads of departments in the State,
+put the magistrates to flight, and held a carnival of
+blood in the city, robbing and murdering at their will.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Stilicho arrested, and put to death.</i></div>
+
+<p>At first the news ran that Honorius himself had
+been killed in the tumult, and then the <i>foederati</i> at Bologna
+urged, and Stilicho consented, that they should
+at once march to Ticinum and avenge his death. Soon,
+however, a correcter version of the affair was received.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>Honorius was not dead, but had been paraded
+up and down the streets of the city by Olympius, in
+a short military cloak and without a diadem, endeavouring
+to persuade the soldiers to return to their
+obedience. In this he had at length succeeded. The
+mutiny had been quelled, but the authors of it had
+gained their end. All the more powerful friends
+of Stilicho at Ticinum had been treacherously slain,
+and it was now deemed safe to issue an order for the
+apprehension of Stilicho himself. The officers of
+the <i>foederati</i>, when the designs of the Court were
+apparent, naturally wished to defend themselves and
+their great general by force, but he refused to take
+any part in such a civil war, ‘not deeming it honourable
+or safe to employ barbarians against the Roman
+army&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>&#x2060;.’ Sarus, the Goth, having no sympathy with
+such scruples, perceiving that it would, in these circumstances,
+ruin his prospects of a military career
+to be known as an adherent of Stilicho, ungenerously
+turned against his old chief, slew the brave Huns
+who formed his body-guard, and would fain have
+captured Stilicho himself, who, however, fled to
+Ravenna, but even in the hurry of his own flight
+found time to warn the neighbouring cities not to
+receive the <i>foederati</i> within their walls. Soon after
+his arrival came a messenger from Olympius bearing
+the Emperor’s orders that he was to be apprehended
+and imprisoned. Stilicho took refuge in one of the
+many churches of Ravenna, but on the soldiers
+swearing a solemn oath in the presence of the Bishop
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>that they were ordered to imprison him only but not
+to kill him, he surrendered himself to them. At
+once the same messenger produced a second letter
+from the Emperor, denouncing against Stilicho the
+punishment of death for his crimes against the Commonwealth.
+His friends and servants and a mass of
+indignant <i>foederati</i> entreated to be allowed to defend
+him by arms, but Stilicho sternly forbade them, and
+calmly presented his neck to the sword of the executioner
+(Aug. 22, 408).</p>
+
+<p>Some men who have led apparently righteous and
+honourable lives are unmasked by Death, who exposes
+their well-hidden wickedness. In Stilicho’s
+case Death wrought exactly the opposite change.
+At every step of his career we ask ourselves the question,
+‘Self-seeker or Patriot?’ and it must be confessed
+that we scarcely get a perfectly satisfactory
+answer. But the closing scenes of his life show that
+he was indeed true to Rome, and refused the vengeance
+and the deliverance which lay all ready to
+his hand rather than use against her the swords of
+the barbarians.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Persecution of the friends of Stilicho.</i></div>
+
+<p>The death of Stilicho was the signal for an outburst
+of jealous rage against his family and friends.
+Eucherius, who had fled to Rome, was before long
+put to death. Thermantia was sent back by Honorius
+to her mother. The adherents of Stilicho were
+tortured to make them confess his traitorous designs,
+and when they steadfastly denied the existence of
+any such, were beaten to death with cudgels. Above
+all, the Roman soldiers, in every city where the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>wives and children of the <i>foederati</i> were dwelling,
+rose in riotous insurrection, killing some and plundering
+others. Henceforth, of course, there was
+open war between legionaries and <i>foederati</i>, the
+latter of whom, to the number of 30,000, streamed
+forth to Alaric’s Illyrian camp and urged him to
+avenge them on their cruel and cowardly foes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric invades Italy, 408.</i></div>
+
+<p>Mindful of his former reverses in Italy, Alaric,
+though the voice ‘Penetrabis ad Urbem’ was still
+ringing in his ears, offered peace to Honorius in
+exchange for a small sum of money, hostages, and
+the province of Pannonia, on which by this time the
+Empire can have had but a slender hold. Honorius,
+safe behind the canals of Ravenna, and relying
+on the prayers of Olympius, refused all terms of
+compromise, and late in this eventful year, 408,
+Alaric marched for the last time over the Julian
+Alps into Italy, never again to leave that land, the
+goal of so many aspirations. The events of the
+three years, 408-410, in each of which there was a
+siege of Rome, cannot here be related with any
+detail, and some of them are among the best-known
+commonplaces of history. I will only briefly assign
+to each year its distinguishing features.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Rome ransomed, 408.</i></div>
+
+<p>The first, 408, was the year of <i>ransom</i>. Alaric, as
+has been said, in the later months of the year
+marched into Italy, and did not, as before, linger in
+the plains of Lombardy, but struck southward through
+Picenum and Umbria, marching no doubt by the great
+Flaminian Way, and stood before long at the gates
+of Rome. There seems to have been no opposition
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>to his progress. The ‘Roman’ party, so zealous in
+killing women and children and in organising <i>pronunciamentos</i>,
+slunk into their holes when an army
+appeared. It is probable that in this Italian expedition
+Alaric had made his host more of an army
+and less of a nation than on the previous occasion.
+We hear nothing of the waggons, and some of his
+marches and counter-marches can hardly have been
+performed with a long train of non-combatants following
+him.</p>
+
+<p>At Alaric’s appearance under their walls the Senate
+(for Honorius was safe at Ravenna) could think of
+no other means of opposing him than putting the
+hapless Serena, the widow of Stilicho, to death,
+fearing that she might open treacherous communications
+with the besiegers. The cowardly deed was
+not long unpunished. Alaric watched the Tiber
+above and below, and drew a strict line of blockade
+round the city. Hunger and pestilence were soon
+raging among the people, and the Senate found
+itself compelled to send ambassadors to Alaric to
+ask his terms. The threat that despair might drive
+the citizens to some audacious sortie was met by the
+well-known answer, ‘The thicker the hay, the easier
+mown’: the enquiry what Alaric meant to leave
+them if he insisted on their surrendering all their
+gold, all their moveable property, and all their barbarian
+slaves, by the equally well-known words,
+‘Your lives&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>&#x2060;.’</p>
+
+<p>More days of famine followed. At length a final
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>embassy arranged the terms of the ransom which
+Alaric condescended to receive from the Imperial
+City. It consisted of 5000 lbs. weight of gold
+(£225,000), 30,000 lbs. of silver (£90,000), 4000
+silken tunics, 3000 scarlet hides, and 3000 lbs. of
+pepper. The date of this transaction is not known,
+but it was probably in the very last days of 408.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>409. Alaric negotiates.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Moderation of his requests.</i></div>
+
+<p>The next year, 409, is the <i>year of the anti-Emperor,
+Attalus</i>. All Alaric’s dealings with the Senate and
+People of Rome at this time were directed to the
+conclusion of a firm treaty of alliance, offensive and
+defensive, with the Emperor. His aim was not to
+conquer Rome, or to settle his followers in any part
+of Italy, but to legitimise his position within the
+Empire, to have a large space on the Middle
+Danube, either Noricum or Pannonia, assigned to
+his people, and then to be recognised as Rome’s
+champion against all other enemies. In fact, he
+desired to renew the old <i>federate</i> relation only on a
+footing of equality instead of one of semi-dependence.
+To all such propositions Honorius, or rather
+the ministers who spoke in his name, replied with
+an unceasing ‘<i>non possumus</i>,’ as they could not be
+attacked, being safe behind the dykes and lagoons
+of Ravenna. Alaric’s only resource was to put
+pressure, even cruel pressure, on Rome, in order
+to bring her sovereign to terms.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Oath sworn by the head of Honorius.</i></div>
+
+<p>A considerable part of the year 409 was consumed
+in these vain negotiations. The Praetorian Prefect,
+Jovius, who had supplanted Olympius in the position
+of chief adviser of the Emperor, seems to have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>been at first disposed to try to make terms with
+Alaric, and to see if the title ‘<i>Magister Utriusque
+Militiae</i>’ could not divert him from his schemes of
+conquest. But Honorius demurred to the proposal,
+and Jovius, accommodating himself to his master’s
+humour, insisted on all the chief officers of the Emperor
+assembling round him and swearing by their
+master’s head (which they touched in making the
+asseveration) that they would make no peace with
+Alaric, but would wage against him perpetual war.
+To all subsequent overtures of Alaric (and some of
+them surprise us by their moderation, offering terms
+such as the Empire might have safely and honourably
+granted), this tremendous oath by the empty
+head of Honorius was opposed as an insuperable
+obstacle.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attalus proclaimed Emperor.</i></div>
+
+<p>Alaric, whose patience was worn out, returned to
+Rome, and again formed the blockade of the City.
+But the Senate, whose patience was equally exhausted,
+refused to again undergo the horrors of
+famine and pestilence for the ungrateful Honorius,
+and sent messengers to Alaric declaring that they
+were willing to renounce their allegiance to the
+Emperor. Peace on these terms was easily arranged.
+Attalus, the Praetorian Prefect of the City, a man
+of Greek extraction, was saluted as Emperor, and in
+that capacity concluded a treaty with Alaric, recognising
+him as an ally of the Empire, probably conceding
+to him a settlement in the coveted provinces
+on the Danube, and conferring on him at once the
+splendid position of <i>Magister Utriusque Militiae</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>410. Attalus refuses to divide Italy with Honorius.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Supplies from Africa stopped.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attalus deposed.</i></div>
+
+<p>So opened the year 410, the ever-memorable year
+of the <i>Third Siege and Capture of Rome</i>. It seemed
+for a time as if Attalus would indeed wrest the Rule
+of All Things from his incapable rival. He marched
+towards Ravenna, from whence issued forth a piteous
+supplication for peace on the basis of a yet further
+subdivided Empire. If Honorius might but continue
+to reign at Ravenna, Attalus should reign at Rome,
+and the <i>Concordia Augustorum</i> might unite them
+and Constantine, the Emperor of the Gauls, with
+the son of Arcadius, Emperor of the East. Attalus
+made a cruel and insulting reply, threatening his
+rival with mutilation and banishment: but the timely
+arrival at Ravenna of six legions from Constantinople
+prevented him from carrying his threat into
+execution, and turned the tide of fortune. Famine
+again threatened Rome, from another cause than
+the blockade of Alaric. Heraclian, to whom had
+been entrusted the execution of the sentence against
+Stilicho, was now holding the great province of Africa
+loyally for Honorius, and by cutting off the food
+supplies of Carthage from Rome, brought the City
+into such terrible straits that an angry cry was heard
+in the Amphitheatre, when the new Emperor was
+sitting there in state watching the games, ‘Pone
+pretium carni humanae’ (‘Fix the tariff for human
+flesh’). Alaric’s keen eye saw that Africa was now
+the key of the position, and he urged upon Attalus
+the necessity of sending troops, barbarian <i>foederati</i>,
+thither to overcome Heraclian. But Attalus, who
+was evidently a futile, inefficient ruler, delayed and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>lingered, and, as it was hinted, began to entertain
+schemes for disembarrassing himself of the oppressive
+patronage of the Visigoth. At length Alaric,
+tired of his vacillation and bad faith, and recognising
+the failure of his scheme of creating a rival Emperor,
+assembled his army on the plain outside Ariminum,
+and there, in the sight of thousands of Romans and
+Goths, formally stripped Attalus of the emblems of
+Empire, and proclaimed that he was reduced to the
+rank of a private citizen.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Sarus breaks off the negotiations between Alaric and Honorius.</i></div>
+
+<p>The diadem and the purple were sent to Honorius
+at Ravenna, and it seemed for a moment as if the
+just and honourable peace, so eagerly desired by
+Italy, by Rome, and by Alaric, might be secured.
+But Sarus the Goth, the same man who had turned
+treacherously against Stilicho in his adversity, and
+who, perhaps on that account, hated Alaric and was
+hated by him, entered Ravenna at the head of 300
+veterans, and succeeded in breaking off the just-resumed
+thread of the negotiations.</p>
+
+<p>Then at length, as it seemed that nothing but the
+sword could cut the Gordian knot, Alaric again
+crossed the Apennines, determined to show what
+he could do to Rome as an enemy, since she in her
+infatuation rejected him as a friend.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric enters Rome, 24 Aug. 410.</i></div>
+
+<p>There was this time no long agony of blockade, no
+famine or pestilence. On the night of the 24th of August,
+410, almost as soon as he had appeared under the
+walls of the City, Alaric effected an entrance through
+the Salarian Gate, at the north-east corner of the
+City, at very nearly the same place where, on the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>20th Sept. 1870, the soldiers of Victor Emmanuel
+entered Rome. Whether the gate was carried by a
+sudden surprise, or was opened by slaves or treacherous
+citizens within, it is impossible now to
+decide; but the theory of surprise seems, upon the
+whole, most probable. The splendid palace of the
+historian Sallust, hard by the Salarian Gate, was set
+on fire, and its spacious gardens had their beauty
+ruined by the entering Gothic soldiers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Rome sacked.</i></div>
+
+<p>Thus, then, at length ‘the great city which reigned
+over the kings of the whole earth’ was captured and
+was pillaged by a foreign and a barbarian enemy.
+Civil war, sedition, frenzied Emperors had ‘dealt
+upon the Seven-hilled City’s pride’ in the course of
+the centuries; but not for 800 years—not since Brennus
+and his Gauls had slain the Conscript Fathers
+in the Forum—had Rome been violently entered by
+a conquering foreign foe. There were some alleviations
+to the horrors of the capture, derived from the
+fact that the assailants were Christians; and these
+alleviations are naturally emphasised by the Church
+historians, from whom we derive most of our scanty
+information as to the Third Siege of Rome. Alaric
+had ordered that no Christian church should be
+injured, and that the right of asylum, especially in
+the two great Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul,
+should be religiously observed. These orders were
+perhaps made known to the citizens, multitudes of
+whom, Pagan as well as Christian, were soon
+flying for shelter to these islands of safety. But
+notwithstanding any such humane orders, honourable
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>both to the general who issued them and to the
+army by whom they were obeyed, the sack of a great
+and wealthy city by a hungry and exasperated army
+of barbarians was of necessity a terrible thing. We
+hear of an aged widow beaten to death to make
+her disclose her imaginary treasures, of matrons
+ravished, of palaces laid in ashes. And above all
+rose now the terrible fact that <i>Roma Invicta</i> had
+been conquered. Where one barbarian chief had
+penetrated, more could, and of a surety would, follow.
+The citizens henceforth—like men who have lived
+through a great and fearful earthquake—must live
+evermore in dread of seeing the ghastly terror recommence.</p>
+
+<p>As even political caricatures may sometimes help
+us to understand what contemporary spectators think
+of the actors on the stage of history, let us listen to
+Procopius, who wrote 150 years later, but who has
+preserved to us a possibly contemporary story, as to
+the reception of the news of the fall of Rome by the
+Roman Augustus.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Reception of the tidings by Honorius.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘They say that at Ravenna one of the eunuchs
+who was in charge of the Imperial poultry announced
+to the Emperor Honorius that Roma had
+actually perished. Whereupon he cried with a loud
+voice—“But just now he fed out of my hands!”
+[for he had an exceedingly large fowl, Roma, by
+name.] Then the eunuch, understanding what was
+passing in his mind, said that it was Roma the <i>City</i>
+which had been destroyed by Alaric. But the Emperor
+in reply said, “But I thought, my friend, that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>the <i>bird</i> Roma had perished!”—so great they say
+was the stupidity of this Emperor.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The capture of Rome settled nothing.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Alaric, 410.</i></div>
+
+<p>The capture of Rome by Alaric, though an event
+of incalculable importance in the history of the world,
+settled nothing in the immediate present. Still the
+Augustus, the only legitimate source of power in the
+Roman State, remained inaccessible at Ravenna.
+Still Heraclian, his yet loyal governor of Africa,
+held that province for his master, withholding the
+grain-supplies without which Rome could not live.
+Still Alaric could not conquer that firm peace,
+guaranteed by sufficient hostages, and securing to
+him a lawful position in the Empire, without which
+he was determined not to return to Illyricum. He
+marched to the extreme south of Italy, and designed
+to cross over into Sicily, in whose ports he would probably
+have collected an armament for the conquest
+of Africa. But he never effected the passage of the
+Straits of Messina, the ships which he had collected
+at Rhegium being destroyed by a violent storm.
+While he was still lingering in Calabria he was
+seized by an illness, which lasted but a few days.
+He had ‘penetrated to the City’; his work was
+done. The fateful voice rang in his ears no longer,
+telling him of great exploits yet reserved for him in
+the future, but instead of it came Death. He was
+probably in about the forty-fifth year of his age; so
+that he, like Theodosius, left great possibilities of
+conquest unexhausted. But in his short career he
+had done enough to change the current of the
+world’s history.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Burial of Alaric.</i></div>
+
+<p>The story of his burial is well known. In order
+to guard his grave from the possibility of insult at
+the hands of the Provincials, a number of captives
+were employed in diverting the stream of the Busentus,
+a river of Bruttii. In the old river-bed a great trench
+was dug, wherein were laid the bones of the conquering
+king, and, after the fashion of his heathen forefathers,
+some of the most precious spoils of Rome
+were laid by his side, that he might not miss them
+in the gardens of Paradise or the halls of Walhalla.
+Then the trench was filled in, the river was turned
+back into its ancient bed, the captives were slain:
+and thus ‘no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this
+day.’</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_VI">LECTURE VI.<br>
+<span class="smcap">Placidia: Attila.</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Historical perspective.</i></div>
+
+<p>An interval of forty-two years elapsed between
+Alaric’s sack of Rome and the next great barbarian
+invasion of Italy. To us, looking at these years as
+they appear on the outstretched map of History, it is
+manifest that they were years of gradual but progressive
+decline and decay for the Roman Empire.
+Probably, but not certainly, they wore the same
+aspect to contemporary observers. But the important
+point to remember is that there <i>was</i> such an
+interval between the first and the second acts of the
+great World-Tragedy. Reading history in a manual,
+or glancing over it in such a rapid sketch as I am
+now attempting to draw, we are apt to forget how
+slowly some of its scenes have unrolled themselves.
+Superficial students, if they do not actually confound
+Alaric with Attila, often think of them as contemporaries,
+perhaps as allies, and suppose that they
+and Genseric and Odoacer, by some combined and
+concerted effort, brought about ‘the fall of the
+Western Empire.’ What I want to impress upon
+my hearers is the fact that if a child was born on the
+day that Alaric was laid under the waters of the
+Busentus, he would be a middle-aged man when Attila
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>stood under the walls of Aquileia, and would be verging
+on threescore and ten when the last Roman
+Emperor of the West was bidden to hand over the
+purple and the diadem to a barbarian conqueror. I
+ask also for a full measure of pity for those true
+Roman hearts whose allotted span of life had to be
+all passed in these years of irresistible decline.
+There are times like that of which a poet has sung—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Bliss was it in those days to be alive,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And to be young was very heaven;’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">times like the first years that followed the battle of
+Salamis, like the first thrill and rapture of the
+Crusades, like ‘the spacious days of great Elizabeth,’
+when the life of a nation has been so strong, so fresh,
+and so triumphant that one feels as if even the
+saddest individual life must have been overflowed by
+the great national gladness and saved from utter
+sorrow. On the other hand, could even the most unclouded
+domestic happiness atone to a patriotic
+Roman who lived in the fifth century for the necessity
+of watching the lingering agony of his country? Like
+a man dwelling upon a subsiding continent, he saw
+one familiar landmark after another submerged beneath
+the waters of barbarism. Or like those remote
+descendants of ours, if such shall then be living on this
+planet, who, as physical philosophers tell us, will see
+this earth begin to part with her atmosphere and
+become incapable of sustaining organic life, he must
+have felt that all the old conditions of being were inverted,
+and that life by the beautiful Mediterranean
+was going to become in truth unliveable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Early life of Placidia, born about 388.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Galla, 394. Death of Theodosius, 395.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Captivity of Placidia.</i></div>
+
+<p>In order to bring the length of this interval of comparative
+tranquillity properly before our minds, let us
+trace the fortunes of one person who lived through it,
+a daughter, sister, wife and mother of Emperors, the
+lady Galla Placidia. The daughter of Theodosius’s
+second marriage, she lost her mother, Galla, when
+a child of five or six years old, and her father in the
+following year. She appears to have been brought
+up at Rome, perhaps by her kinswoman Serena,
+who possibly intended that she should be the bride
+of her son, Eucherius. Her position was one of forlorn
+splendour, that of an orphan with no sister and
+with two such brothers as Arcadius and Honorius;
+nor does it appear to have been cheered by any
+gleams of friendship between herself and the house
+of Stilicho. When Alaric first appeared under the
+walls of Rome, the resolution to put Serena to death
+as his suspected accomplice was taken ‘by the
+Senate and by the Emperor’s sister, Placidia&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>&#x2060;.’
+Probably the name of a young maiden of twenty was
+somewhat ostentatiously used by the Senate in order
+to justify their own action against the niece of the
+great Theodosius: still it is impossible for the
+admirers of Placidia (of whom I am one) not to
+regret that her influence on this occasion was
+exerted on the side of vengeance rather than on the
+side of compassion. It was probably at the end of
+the first siege of Rome that Placidia was taken
+prisoner by the Goths, who retained her as a hostage,
+but treated her with all outward show of honour and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>royal ministrations. She was therefore doubtless
+present at the great assembly at Ariminum, where
+her brother’s rival, Attalus, was deposed; she would
+hear from the Gothic soldiers their histories of the
+sack of Rome; she perhaps saw the mighty form of
+her conqueror outstretched in death in his tent by
+the Busentus. Now, for the next five years, her
+history was to be singularly interwoven with that of
+his brother-in-law and successor, Ataulfus.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alaric’s successor, Ataulfus.</i></div>
+
+<p>This man, whose name is in fact the same as one
+of those borne by another great Northern conqueror,
+Gustavus <i>Adolphus</i>, had joined Alaric with reinforcements
+raised in Upper Pannonia in the year 409,
+and had taken part in the skirmishes with Sarus
+before Ravenna, which preceded the Third Siege of
+Rome. He was a blood-relation&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> of Alaric, as well
+as his kinsman by marriage, and was by general
+acclamation hailed as his successor and raised on
+the shield as king. Though not boasting the full
+number of inches of a Gothic warrior, he was of
+shapely form and noble countenance. He is especially
+interesting to us, because a chance conversation
+with a Provincial, a conversation which passed
+at Narbonne and was reported at Bethlehem,
+gives us a glimpse into his own secret hopes and
+aspirations, such as we do not possess into the mind
+of any other leader of the barbarians. Orosius tells
+us that when he was at Bethlehem he heard a citizen
+of Narbonne, who had served under Theodosius,
+and who was a wise and religious person, say that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>Ataulfus had frequently told him ‘that his first
+thought when he entered on the career of conquest
+had been to claim for the Goths all that leadership
+of the world which had once belonged to the Romans,
+and to vindicate for himself a position like
+that which had belonged to the mighty Augustus.
+Gradually, however, the fashion of his dreams had
+changed. He saw that it was not by the sword
+alone, but by law, that Rome had dominated the
+world, and that his own countrymen, wild and impetuous,
+had not learned that lesson of obedience to
+Law which alone could fit them to rule; and now
+his whole desire was to restore and re-invigorate
+the great Roman Commonwealth, transforming that
+which he once hoped to destroy.’</p>
+
+<p>Consciously or unconsciously every really statesmanlike
+intellect among the Northern chieftains must
+have gone through the same change and come to the
+same conclusion. Out of the Goth, or the Frank, or
+the Saxon alone it was not possible yet to form a
+law-abiding nation. Either from the Roman State
+or the Roman Church they must learn those habits
+of discipline and self-restraint which they did in the
+end learn, and practise as no purely Romance
+nation, far less any purely Celtic nation, has ever
+practised them. What Ataulfus saw to be the
+statesman’s true aim was that which Theodoric
+accomplished with temporary, and Charlemagne
+with somewhat more permanent success—that transfusion
+of fresh Teutonic blood into the old Roman
+body which has in fact made modern Europe.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Loves of Ataulfus and Placidia.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Their marriage at Narbonne, 414.</i></div>
+
+<p>The political conversion of Ataulfus was aided,
+as conversions have been so often aided, by a
+woman. The fair Placidia, forced to follow all the
+movements of the Gothic army, yet ‘treated with all
+honour and ever tended with royal ministrations,’
+vanquished his heart. The old saying that ‘conquered
+Greece led her victor captive’ was renewed
+with Placidia and Ataulfus; but with a delicacy
+which we should term chivalrous if we were speaking
+of a later age, he refused to make her his bride,
+though she too loved him, till the consent of her
+brother came from Ravenna. After four years of
+weary negotiations this consent was obtained, but
+not until the Goths had marched out of Italy into
+Gaul. In January, 414, the marriage of the Gothic
+king and the Roman Lady was celebrated at Narbonne
+at the house of a citizen named Ingenuus.
+The ‘wise and religious person’ who afterwards
+conversed with Jerome at Bethlehem was doubtless
+present at the wedding, if indeed he were not (as is
+very probable) Ingenuus himself. Men noticed with
+interest that Ataulfus entered the inner apartment to
+claim his bride, dressed, not in the barbaric splendour
+of his countrymen, but like a Roman Senator.
+They saw with admiration the fifty goodly youths
+in silken robes, bearing plates filled with gold and
+gems, who formed part of Ataulfus’ splendid <i>Morgen-gabe</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>
+to his bride. Then came music, and they
+saw, perhaps not without a touch of scorn, Attalus,
+once Emperor of Rome, leading the dance and song
+in honour of his great patron’s wedding.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Fortunes of the Visigothic kingdom.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Placidia’s child, and of Ataulfus, 415.</i></div>
+
+<p>Unhappily for the world, this union of Roman and
+barbarian led to no abiding results. The kingdom
+set up by Ataulfus did indeed endure, though not
+exactly in the shape which he had given to it. Established
+at first chiefly as a South Gaulish kingdom,
+and remaining such till the conquests of
+Clovis at the end of the fifth century, it then
+shifted its centre of gravity southward of the Pyrenees
+and became that Visigothic kingdom of Spain
+which was overthrown by the Moors in 711, and
+which gradually crept back to life again under the
+kings of Leon, Castille, and Arragon. But the
+dynasty of Ataulfus himself was short-lived. A
+child, named Theodosius, was born to him by Placidia;
+but this child, around which so many hopes
+centered, died, to the unspeakable grief of its parents,
+and was buried in a silver coffin at Barcelona,
+where they then dwelt. Soon after the infant’s
+death the father was stabbed in the back by one
+of his servants, who thus avenged an old grudge
+for the execution of a former master. His dying
+words to his brother were, ‘Live in peace with Rome
+and restore Placidia to Honorius.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>416-423.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Humiliations of Placidia.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>She is restored to Honorius, 416.</i></div>
+
+<p>The murder of Ataulfus was possibly connected
+with a sort of insurrection against the Roman influences
+which had been of late so powerful in the
+Gothic Court. His successor, the brutal Singeric,
+murdered the sons of Ataulfus (the children of his
+first marriage) and forced Placidia to walk as a
+captive before his chariot for twelve miles from the
+gates of Barcelona. After only eight days’ reign
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>however, this ruffian was dethroned and slain, and
+the gallant Walia was acclaimed king, whose name
+is one of the most distinguished in the early history
+of the Visigothic monarchy. He renewed and
+strengthened the alliance with Rome, and gave
+back Placidia to the Emperor, receiving in return
+the somewhat prosaic ransom of 19,000 quarters of
+corn.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Her marriage to Constantius.</i></div>
+
+<p>Placidia was escorted by the Roman general who
+had received her from the hands of the Goths to
+her brother’s Court at Ravenna, and there, nearly
+two years after the death of Ataulfus, she gave her
+hand to this general, an old lover of hers named
+Constantius.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Second widowhood and exile of Placidia.</i></div>
+
+<p>The union of Constantius and Placidia lasted four
+years, and the fruit of it was a son and a daughter,
+the first named Valentinian (after his maternal great-grandfather),
+the second, Honoria. Constantius, a
+brave soldier, but a rough, sullen, unpopular man,
+was associated in the Empire by his brother-in-law,
+and, after six months’ enjoyment of the Imperial
+dignity, died, apparently of mere <i>ennui</i>, in 421. Two
+years after his death, Placidia and her children
+withdrew to Constantinople, on account of a quarrel
+which had broken out with her brother, who, as
+I suspect from the description of his conduct, had
+begun to show symptoms of softening of the brain.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Honorius. Elevation of Joannes.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>423-425.</i></div>
+
+<p>In this same year (423) Honorius died at the age
+of thirty-nine, and was buried in a gigantic marble
+sarcophagus, which may still be seen in ‘the Mausoleum
+of Galla Placidia’ at Ravenna. There was no
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>member of the family of Theodosius on the spot to
+claim the vacant diadem, and Joannes, a somewhat
+obscure member of the Civil Service (<i>Primicerius
+Notariorum</i>), was permitted to wear it, under the
+patronage of the powerful <i>Magister Militum</i>, Castinus.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Theodosius II places the son of Placidia on the Western throne.</i></div>
+
+<p>When the news of this event (usurpation we must
+not call it, for there was no strict hereditary right in
+the Roman Empire) reached the Court of Constantinople,
+the young Emperor Theodosius II, the son
+of Arcadius, determined to send an expedition to the
+West to overthrow Joannes. The expedition was
+commanded by two brave Alans—father and son—named
+Ardaburius and Aspar; and, after one or
+two reverses, was in the end completely successful.
+Joannes was brought as a prisoner to Aquileia; his
+right hand was cut off, he was paraded round the
+city upon an ass, and, after some more ungenerous
+insults of this kind, he was put to death. Ravenna,
+which had sympathised with the elevation of Joannes,
+was punished by being sacked by the soldiers of
+Ardaburius. Rome was flattered by the young
+Valentinian III, a boy of seven years old, being sent
+there to assume the purple. At Constantinople,
+Theodosius II and his people, who were assembled
+in the Hippodrome when the news of victory arrived,
+walked in procession to the great Basilica,
+singing praises to God for his deliverance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Placidia as regent, 425-450.</i></div>
+
+<p>From 425 to 450, that is, from the thirty-eighth to
+the sixty-third year of her life, Placidia was virtually
+the sovereign of what remained of the Western
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>Empire. She was already styled Augusta in right
+of her husband Constantius’ six months’ wearing of
+the purple. She was, in accordance with one or
+two precedents, entitled to hold the reins of power
+(with the rank, though not the precise title, of
+Regent) during her son’s minority: and as that son
+was idle and pleasure-loving, reproducing only the
+weaker features of the Theodosian character, she
+continued to hold them after he had grown to manhood,
+and until her own death in 450.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Events of Placidia’s regency.</i></div>
+
+<p>Great events, disastrous events, were happening
+during this second quarter of the fifth century. In
+the Church of the East the wind was rising for that
+great storm of the Monophysite controversy which
+for a hundred years took peace from the earth. In
+the West, Carthage was being conquered by the
+Vandals, Gaul and Spain were being more and more
+hopelessly lost to the Empire, ‘the groans of the
+Britons’ were being borne across the sea to ‘Aetius,
+thrice Consul.’ All these events Placidia had to
+witness with failing heart from her palace at Ravenna
+by the Pine Wood and the sea.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Her chief adviser, Aetius.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Danger from the Huns.</i></div>
+
+<p>If the Augusta did not herself display any conspicuous
+faculty of rule during these twenty-five
+years of decline, she at least had the merit of loyally
+supporting the one man who, like Stilicho in the
+previous generation, was best able to sustain the
+falling Empire. This was that ‘Aetius thrice Consul’
+to whom allusion has just been made. He was
+born at Silistria, on the Danube, the son of Gaudentius,
+an official of high rank in the Western Empire.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>If he was not of barbarian extraction, a point on
+which we cannot speak with certainty, the events of
+his life threw him into close intercourse with the
+barbarians. For three years a hostage in the camp
+of the Visigoths, and then, for an indefinite time,
+hostage in the country of the Huns, he had contracted
+friendships with the leading men of both
+nations, had perhaps learned something of their
+language, had doubtless observed their tactics and
+formed his own opinion of the best means of defeating
+them&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>&#x2060;. After the death of Honorius he had
+adhered to the party of Joannes, but, not having
+been able to avert his overthrow, he had accepted
+high command under Placidia and Valentinian, whom
+he served loyally to the end of his days&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>&#x2060;. Loyally,
+that is, as far as his sovereigns were concerned. If
+the hitherto accepted story of his quarrel with Bonifacius,
+governor of Africa, be correct, there was
+deep disloyalty on the part of Aetius towards his
+greatest colleague in the Imperial service, and that
+disloyalty cost a province to the Empire; but the
+account of these transactions may be reserved till
+the next lecture, in which I shall have to speak of
+the conquests of the Vandals. During ten years,
+from 429 to 439, the energies of Aetius were chiefly
+directed to maintaining some hold on the East and
+Centre of Gaul, with which object he waged war with
+diverse success on the Visigoths, the Franks, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>the Burgundians, and it is noteworthy that in these
+wars the most useful auxiliaries of Aetius were men
+of the Hunnish nation. During the last nine years
+of the life of Placidia (441-450) the chief factor in
+European politics, the care that bit most deeply
+into the hearts both of the Eastern and Western
+Sovereigns of the Empire, was the menacing might
+of <span class="smcap">Attila</span>, king of the <span class="smcap">Huns</span>. To these savage
+Asiatic marauders it is now time to turn our attention.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>History of the Huns after 374.</i></div>
+
+<p>For more than fifty years after the Huns crossed
+the Sea of Azof, and fell like a thunderbolt on the
+kingdom of Hermanric the Ostrogoth, their history
+is almost a blank. They had set in motion an avalanche
+of ruin on the Empire, but they themselves,
+though doubtless spreading wide the terror of their
+name through Southern Russia and Hungary, and
+though once travelling southward as far as Antioch
+on a marauding expedition, did not often during this
+period come forward as claimants for the goods of the
+dying Empire. In fact, as we have already seen, on
+several occasions the Hunnish soldier seems to have
+been the bravest and most faithful of the auxiliaries
+of Rome. In part this was probably due to common
+enmity to the intervening Visigoths. The Roman
+Provincial hated and feared the Goth: the Goth
+feared and loathed the Hun: accordingly the Roman
+and the Hun found it for their interest to be friends.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila’s accession, 433.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>His character and appearance.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The sword of Mars.</i></div>
+
+<p>In the year 433, Attila and his brother Bleda
+mounted the throne of the Huns. Twelve years
+later Bleda died, having been, according to some
+accounts, craftily slain by order of his brother. At
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>all times Attila’s was the commanding personality,
+and with him alone need we here concern ourselves.
+Let us hear how he is described by the historian of
+the Goths&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>&#x2060;: ‘Attila was a man born into the world
+to agitate the nations, the fear of all lands, one who,
+I hardly know how, terrified all by the awful apprehensions
+spread abroad concerning him. He was
+proud in his gait, rolling his eyes hither and thither,
+so that the elation of his heart showed itself even by
+every movement of his body: a lover of war, but not
+himself given to acts of violence&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a>&#x2060;, mighty in counsel,
+placable by those who humbled themselves before
+him, favourable to those whom he had admitted to
+his fealty: short of stature, broad of chest, with an
+over-large head, with little eyes, thin beard, hair
+sprinkled with grey, turned-up nose, muddy complexion.
+All these were the characteristics which
+recalled his origin’ [or, to use our modern phraseology,
+the distinctive marks of the Mongol race].
+‘By natural temperament he was always confident
+that he should do great things, but this confidence
+of his was increased by finding “the sword
+of Mars,” which is ever held sacred by the Scythian
+kings, and which is said to have been discovered in
+this way. A certain herdsman saw one of his heifers
+limping, and being anxious to discover the cause of
+her wound, carefully followed her bleeding footprints
+through the grass, till at length he came to the sword,
+upon which the heifer had incautiously trodden while
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>grazing, and having dug it up he at once carried it
+to Attila. He, having gratified the herdsman with
+a generous present, deemed himself to be now appointed
+sovereign of the whole world, and victory in
+all wars to be assured to him in right of the sword
+of Mars.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>433. Hunnish demands at Constantinople.</i></div>
+
+<p>Immediately upon the accession of Attila and
+Bleda, they demanded and obtained from the Eastern
+Emperor the duplication of their yearly <i>stipendium</i>,
+or, as they more truly called it, tribute, which
+was now raised from £14,000 to £28,000. At the
+same time they insisted on the return of all Huns or
+Romans who had fled from the Hunnish dominions
+and taken refuge under the ineffectual aegis of Rome.
+This demand for the surrender of refugees, the result,
+doubtless, of the barbarous despotism of the Huns,
+was afterwards frequently renewed, and its imperfect
+fulfilment was a standing grievance against the
+Eastern Emperor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>433-441. Extent of Attila’s Empire.</i></div>
+
+<p>For the next eight years, however, we hear but
+little of diplomatic relations between Attila and the
+Empire. There can be little doubt that during these
+years he was engaged in consolidating his dominions
+northwards and eastwards. His own peculiar territory
+was evidently the flat land of what we now call
+Hungary, between the Danube and the Carpathians;
+but the nations which owned his over-lordship
+stretched probably from the Caspian to the Rhine.
+Very loose and ill-compacted, no doubt, was the
+Empire of the Huns; but the kings of the Ostrogoths,
+Gepidae, Alans, Suevi, and Heruli, all followed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>Attila to battle, all formed part of that confederacy
+of rapine which he could hurl whenever it
+pleased him against a civilised and wealthy foe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>His campaigns in Asia.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Did he drive our Saxon forefathers from their homes?</i></div>
+
+<p>In the East another Tartar horde, the Geougen,
+perhaps even more savage than the Huns themselves,
+threatened the new barbarian Empire; but
+Attila appears to have formed an alliance with China
+which neutralised their hostility, and left him free to
+prosecute his designs of conquest west of the Ural
+mountains and south of the Caspian. He marched
+from the latter sea fifteen days southward into the
+Persian kingdom, and ravaged the ancient province
+of Media. He evidently ruled without a rival in
+European Russia, or at least in that part of it which
+was then worthy of even a barbarian’s notice, and—what
+is more important to us—he had, we are told,
+‘subjected the islands in the ocean to his sway.’
+These ‘islands in the ocean’ can be none other than
+the islands and peninsula of Denmark and the
+southern part of Sweden, which the geographers of
+the time considered to be an island. Now, however
+transient may have been the Hunnish conquest of
+those Baltic lands, of Holstein, Jutland, and South
+Sweden, it was sufficient to produce results of world-historical
+importance. In those lands our fathers,
+the Saxons, the Jutes, the Angles, were dwelling at
+the commencement of the fifth century, making
+doubtless many a piratical raid against the ‘<i>Litus
+Saxonicum</i>’ in Britain, but, as a rule, returning with
+their plunder to their homes by the Baltic. From
+those lands, before the year 441, they had begun to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>swarm forth, alighting upon the eastern and southern
+coasts of Britain, coming probably with wives and
+children, and coming to conquer and to <i>remain</i>.
+Why this new and sudden change in the current of
+the nation’s thoughts? Surely it was the swarthy
+Hunnish riders, the same who had scared the Visigoths
+across the Danube, who sent the Angle and
+the Saxon in their long ships scudding across the
+German Ocean. If this be so, the obscure movements
+of this squalid Hunnish people not only
+threw down the Empire of Rome, but indirectly
+caused the building up of the Empire of England.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila torments the Eastern and Western Courts with his
+embassies, 441-450.</i></div>
+
+<p>With the year 441, Attila re-enters the arena of
+Imperial politics. For the next nine years he sends
+ceaseless embassies to the Eastern and Western
+Empires, ostensibly to press for the redress of grievances,
+really in order to claim higher and ever
+higher terms for the maintenance of peace, and to
+enrich his favourites at Court by the presents which
+he well knows that the trembling Augusti at Constantinople
+and Ravenna will give them in order to
+purchase their good offices with their master.</p>
+
+<p>The standing grievance against the Eastern Court
+was, as has been said, the alleged failure to surrender
+the fugitives, Hunnish princes or Roman merchants,
+who had escaped from Attila’s dominions. The
+chief grievances against Placidia and Valentinian
+were two: the vases of Sirmium and the dowry of
+the lady Honoria.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The matter of the Sirmian vases.</i></div>
+
+<p>(1) A certain Gaulish provincial named Constantius,
+who filled the post of Secretary to Attila,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>when the city of Sirmium was besieged by the Huns,
+received from the Bishop of that city a deposit of the
+rich gold Communion-plate of the Church, in trust to
+apply the proceeds to the ransoming of the Bishop
+and his flock. Regardless, however, of this trust,
+he carried off the sacred vessels to Rome and raised a
+large sum of money upon them from the goldsmith,
+Silvanus. Eventually Sirmium was taken; Constantius,
+a traitor to all parties, was crucified; and
+Attila, claiming a sort of ‘resulting trust’ of the
+vases for himself as conqueror, insisted that Silvanus
+should be surrendered to him as having stolen <i>his</i>
+property.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Honoria’s ring.</i></div>
+
+<p>(2) Honoria, the sister of Valentinian III, a
+young and giddy girl, had compromised her reputation
+by an intrigue with an Imperial chamberlain,
+and was sent by her mother to the Court of Constantinople
+in a kind of honourable imprisonment.
+Her spirit chafed at the seclusion in which she was
+kept by her four middle-aged and almost nun-like
+cousins, and she formed the wild scheme of plighting
+her troth to the King of the Huns, and calling upon
+him to be her deliverer. Attila received the ring
+which she sent him, and, though he had already
+many wives, disdained not to add Honoria to the
+number, so far at least as this that ‘he claimed as
+her betrothed husband one half of the Western
+Empire which had been bequeathed to Honoria by
+her father, but out of which she was kept by her
+brother’s covetousness.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Embassy of 448.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Imperial plot for Attila’s assassination.</i></div>
+
+<p>The most important of the return-embassies was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>that which was sent by Theodosius II, in the year
+448, to the Court of Attila. The chief ambassador
+was Maximin, a man of illustrious birth and high
+official rank; and the official whom we should call the
+Secretary of Legation was Priscus, to whose able
+pen we owe a minute account of the embassy, which
+is certainly the most interesting historical document
+of the century. Both Maximin and Priscus were
+Pagans, and both were men of high character.
+They were used, however, to cloak an infamous plot
+which had been concerted at the Court of Constantinople,
+but of which they were themselves
+ignorant, for the assassination of Attila by one of the
+nobles of his guard named Edeco. It is like reading
+a chapter of <i>Quentin Durward</i> or <i>Les Trois
+Mousquetaires</i>, to see the way in which the plot is
+hatched, developed, and finally detected: and the
+honest indignation of Attila against ‘his slave,
+Theodosius, who paid him tribute but dared to plot
+the assassination of his master,’ is finely expressed,
+and puts the savage Hun for the time immeasurably
+above the cultured and nominally Christian Emperor.
+I have no space here, however, to insert these details;
+but, though it has been often quoted before, I must
+transcribe Priscus’s account of Attila’s palace and of a
+banquet therein, to which he and his chief were invited.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila’s palace.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘Having crossed some more rivers we arrived at
+length at a very large village, in which was situated
+the palace of Attila. This dwelling was, we were
+told, the finest building in all the country. It was
+made of logs and smooth planks, and surrounded by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>wooden palisades, not for safety but for ornament.
+Next to the King’s house, that of Onegesius (his
+chief minister) was most conspicuous. It, too, was
+surrounded by a palisading, but was not adorned
+with towers as Attila’s was. Not far from this enclosure
+was a bath which Onegesius had built of
+stones brought from Pannonian quarries, for the barbarians
+who dwell there have not a stick nor a stone
+in their own country, but have to import all building
+materials from a distance. The architect of this
+bath was carried captive from Sirmium, and hoped
+to receive his freedom as the reward of his ingenuity;
+but unconsciously he prepared for himself a worse
+lot than that of ordinary slavery, for Onegesius made
+him his bath-man, and he had to wait upon him and
+his retinue whenever they had a mind to bathe.’</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Banquet.</span></h3>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila’s banquet.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘When we returned to our tent, there came an
+invitation to us both from Attila to be present at his
+banquet, which would take place about 3 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> Punctually,
+at the time appointed, we went to the dinner
+and stood on the threshold before Attila. According
+to the custom of the country, the cup-bearer brought
+us a bowl of wine that we might pray for the good-luck
+of the host before taking our seats. When this
+was done, and we had just tasted the bowl, we came
+to the chairs of state on which we were to sit at
+dinner-time. All the seats of the guests were ranged
+along the walls on either side of the building. In the
+centre of all sat Attila on a couch, with another couch
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>behind him, behind which again a flight of steps led
+up to his bed, hidden by curtains of white linen and
+variegated stuffs, ornamentally arranged as the
+Greeks and Romans prepare the nuptial couch.’
+Then the order of precedence is described. The
+Ambassadors, to their evident surprise, found that
+the seats of honour were given, not to them, but to
+Hunnish nobles.</p>
+
+<p>‘Opposite to Onegesius on a double chair sat two
+of the sons of Attila, while his eldest son sat on
+Attila’s couch, not near to him but on its extreme
+verge, and with eyes cast down upon the ground
+through awe of his father. When all were thus
+arranged in order, the cup-bearer came in and
+handed to Attila his ivy-wood drinking-cup filled
+with wine. When he had received it, he saluted
+him who sat nearest him in rank. The guest thus
+honoured stood up, and it was not etiquette for him
+to sit down till he had sipped or drunk off the wine
+and returned the goblet to the cup-bearer. In the
+same way all who were present showed their respect
+to the King: he remaining seated all the while, they
+stood up, received the cup, greeted him and tasted
+the wine. Behind each guest stood a cup-bearer,
+whose business it was to go into the centre of the
+hall, each in his proper order, and meet Attila’s cup-bearer
+coming out from beside his master.</p>
+
+<p>‘Then entered first Attila’s servant bearing a
+plate full of meat, and after him came the general
+waiters who laid bread and other victuals on the
+tables, of which there was one for every three or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>four guests, or sometimes more. For all the rest of
+the barbarians and for us a costly banquet had been
+prepared, which was served on silver dishes, but
+Attila had plain meat on his wooden plate. He
+showed also simple tastes in all his other surroundings.
+For the other banqueters had golden and
+silver drinking-cups put beside them, but his was of
+wood. His raiment also was quite plain, distinguished
+by its cleanness only from that of any of his
+followers; and neither the sword which was hung
+up beside him, nor the clasps of his barbaresque
+shoes, nor the bridle of his horse, was adorned, as
+is the case with other Huns, with gold or precious
+stones or anything else that is costly.’</p>
+
+<p>Priscus then again describes the drinking of Attila’s
+health, which was performed by all the guests, standing,
+between each of the courses.</p>
+
+<p>‘When evening came on, torches were lighted, and
+two barbarians coming in and standing opposite to
+Attila, recited songs previously composed, in which
+they sang of his victories and his warlike virtues.
+The banqueters gazed earnestly on the minstrels;
+some were delighted with the poems; others, remembering
+past conflicts, felt their souls stirred within
+them; while the old were melted into tears by the
+thought that their bodies were grown weak through
+age and their hot hearts were compelled into repose.</p>
+
+<p>‘When the songs were ended a mad Hun came forward,
+who by his strange, wild, incessant chatter moved
+all the guests to laughter. After him entered Zercon
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>the Moor’ [whom we know from another source&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> to
+have been a hump-backed dwarf with ape-like nose].
+‘By his garb, his voice, and his wild promiscuous
+jumble of Latin, Hunnish, and Gothic words, he
+sent all present, except Attila, into fits of laughter.
+The King, however, remained quite unmoved, changed
+not a line of his countenance, and neither by word
+nor deed showed the slightest enjoyment of the joke,
+except that when his youngest son, Ernak, came in
+and stood beside him he gently pinched his cheek
+and looked upon him with kindly gaze. When I
+expressed my wonder at his neglect of his other
+sons and the favour which he showed to this one,
+the barbarian who sat beside me and who understood
+the Italian language, after making me promise
+secrecy, assured me that the prophets had foretold to
+Attila that his race should suffer reverses and then
+be raised up again by this son.</p>
+
+<p>‘When we had sat at the banquet till far into the
+night, we departed, not wishing to persist in drinking
+any longer.’</p>
+
+<p>From this single picture we may imagine the
+scenes which frequently occurred when the Ambassadors
+of Theodosius and Valentinian came, with
+fearful hearts, into the presence of Attila, striving,
+yet striving in vain, to keep up the traditions of
+the majesty of Rome. We may imagine, too, the
+reception which would be accorded to the Teutonic
+under-kings, Gepid, Herul, Ostrogoth, when
+they came, as assuredly they would come, at least
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>once a year, into the presence of their supreme
+lord.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Deaths of Placidia and Theodosius II, 450.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Marcian, the new Eastern Emperor, will not truckle to
+Attila.</i></div>
+
+<p>The years from 441 to 450, the era of embassies,
+came to an end. In 450 death wrought great changes
+in the palaces both of Ravenna and Constantinople.
+In the West, Placidia died, and the functions as well
+as the show of governing had to be assumed by
+Valentinian III, who still for a time gave his confidence
+loyally to Aetius. In the East, Theodosius II
+died of injuries received by a fall from a runaway
+horse, and the sovereign power became vested in his
+sister Pulcheria and her husband, the brave old
+soldier, Marcian. The next Ambassador sent by
+Marcian’s orders to the Court of Attila took a higher
+and more manly tone than the Hun had heard during
+the whole reign of Theodosius. It was clear that
+there would be no more chance of sending oppressive
+embassies, of doubling and quadrupling the
+‘tribute,’ or of worrying about the return of refugees.
+Any further advantages that were to be gained from
+the East must be gained at the point of the sword:
+and upon a survey of the whole situation, Attila
+decided that since the time had come for war it
+should be war, not with the East but with the West,
+not with the grim Marcian but with the soft and
+indolent Valentinian.</p>
+
+<p>There is thus a certain correspondence between
+the careers of Alaric and Attila. Each took up a
+position on the confines of the two Empires. Each
+at first spent some years in making war or threatening war
+on the Eastern Empire, and each finally
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>devoted his whole energies to war with the Empire
+of the West.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila prepares for war with the Western Empire.</i></div>
+
+<p>Pretexts for war were of course easily found. The
+great question of the vases of Sirmium was probably
+still unsettled. Honoria’s dowry had certainly not
+been handed over to the affianced Hun. Aetius,
+warring in Gaul, had seated on one of the Frankish
+thrones a young prince (possibly Meroveus), whose
+supplanted rival claimed the assistance of Attila.
+Above all, the Huns and their allies yearned to burn,
+to plunder, to slay, and the Western provinces alone
+could at the moment satiate this desire. Attila did
+not, however, entirely neglect the prudent precautions
+of a statesman. He concluded an alliance, offensive
+and defensive, with Gaiseric, the Vandal conqueror
+of Carthage, an alliance which, had it been followed
+up by a well-timed Vandal attack on Rome, might
+probably have ended the life of the Western Empire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Alliance between that Empire and the Visigoths. 451.</i></div>
+
+<p>On the other hand, Aetius, at this crisis of the
+fortunes of Gaul, concluded an alliance which was
+of infinite importance, both for its immediate results
+and for the rearrangement of parties to which it
+pointed in the not distant future. Theodoric the
+Visigoth, successor of Walia, reigned at Toulouse
+over a well-compacted monarchy which had been
+rapidly growing in strength and in civilisation. We
+are now speaking of a time forty-one years after
+Alaric’s sack of Rome: and the days when the Visigoths
+were a wandering horde of <i>foederati</i>, seeking
+on almost any terms for a recognised position within
+the Empire, are already far below the horizon. Theodoric
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>is the acknowledged lord of one of the fairest
+portions of Gaul; his people have become a dominant
+caste of warriors, whose ascendancy the Provincials
+do not dream of disputing; but Aetius has
+been for years struggling, sometimes with the aid of
+Hunnish auxiliaries, to prevent him from extending
+his dominion yet further over Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in the presence of this vaster danger, this
+thunder-cloud rolling up from the plains of Hungary,
+which threatens to overwhelm Goth and Roman in
+one common ruin, all these bickerings cease. The
+Visigoth no doubt is yet barbarous, but he is rapidly
+becoming civilised; while the Hun is an utter
+savage. The Visigoth, though an Arian, is a Christian;
+the Hun is a brutal Pagan. The Visigoth desires,
+it is true, to rule in Gaul; but the Hun will
+utterly destroy it. The result of these considerations
+was that Aetius and Theodoric formed an
+alliance against the invader, and, notwithstanding
+some delays and some misunderstandings, they
+seem on the whole to have both, honourably observed
+its obligations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila enters Gaul, 451.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Siege of Orleans.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila retreats.</i></div>
+
+<p>At Eastertide, 451, the waters of the great deep
+were broken up. The motley host, said to number
+half a million of men, marshalled by ‘a mob of
+kings&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>&#x2060;,’ but all trembling at the nod of Attila, moved
+westward, hewed down trees in the Thuringer
+Wald, and, on the rude boats and rafts which they
+thus constructed, crossed the Rhine. All the towns
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>in Belgic Gaul—Tongres, Metz, Rheims—yielded to
+their savage onslaught. Everywhere flew the red
+banner of fire. The citizens were slain on their
+hearth-stones; the priests, against whom the invaders
+had an especial hatred, were murdered before
+the altars, on which glittered the coveted silver
+and gold. Paris escaped destruction; whether saved
+by the prayers of Sainte Geneviève or guarded by
+its own comparative insignificance it is not for us
+to decide. So the savage host, having rolled on
+through Belgic and Lugdunensian Gaul, reached the
+great river Loire, which circled the kingdom of the
+Visigoths. Here they laid siege to Orleans, that
+city so memorable for her sieges. The battering-rams
+(for Attila possessed these engines of war)
+were shaking the walls of the city, and the inhabitants
+feared that only ruin was before them. But
+their Bishop, Anianus, bade them be of good courage,
+and foretold that deliverance would reach them on
+the 24th of June. On that day, while they were
+praying in the church, Anianus sent a messenger
+to mount the ramparts and see if help were approaching.
+The messenger went once, twice, in vain.
+The third time he brought word that a cloud of dust
+was seen upon the horizon. It was caused by the
+troops of Aetius and Theodoric, who, after some
+delay and wavering of purpose, had joined forces
+and were approaching to deliver the city. Attila,
+for some reason with which we are not acquainted,
+declined to await their attack, and began to retrace
+his steps towards the Rhine. Doubtless his vast
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>army was difficult to feed, and difficult to keep together,
+in the country which they had so ruthlessly
+ravaged; and probably Attila foresaw great danger
+in attempting to cross the broad Loire in the face
+of a large army, which united Gothic courage to
+Roman science of war. Whatever the cause, he
+retreated, and reached the city of Troyes, which he
+consented to exempt from pillage on condition that
+the Bishop, St. Lupus, whose saintly appearance
+awed and impressed him, should accompany him as
+far as the Rhine. On the Mauriac plain, some five
+miles from Troyes, the pursuing armies came up
+with him; and here was fought that ‘cruel, manifold,
+monstrous, and stubborn battle&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>&#x2060;’ to which historians
+have given, not quite correctly, the name of
+the Battle of Châlons.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Battle of Châlons. July? 451.</i></div>
+
+<p>Before the fight began, Attila consulted the rude
+auguries of his nation, drawn from the inspection of
+the bowels of a sheep and the markings of some
+bones. The soothsayers predicted ‘ill fortune to
+the Huns,’ but qualified it with the assurance that
+the leader of their foes should fall. The hope that
+Aetius, the one great Roman champion, would perish,
+seemed to console Attila for the presage of his own
+defeat.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a battle of many nations. Under
+the standards of the king of the Huns marched
+Ostrogoths, Gepidae, Heruli, and a host of less-known
+nationalities, Teutonic, Slavonic, and Turanian.
+The three kings of the Ostrogoths, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>especially the eldest of them, Walamir, and Ardaric,
+king of the Gepidae, were Attila’s chief advisers and
+lieutenants on the battle-field.</p>
+
+<p>The allied army, on the other hand, contained not
+only Visigoths, who were posted on the right wing,
+and Romans, who were on the left, but Franks,
+Saxons, Bretons, Burgundians, and a number of
+other tribes settled in Gaul. Chief among these
+lesser nationalities were the Alans, who were settled
+at Valence on the Rhone. They were near of kin
+to the Huns, and their king, Sangiban, was suspected
+of intending to desert to them on the battle-field.
+He was therefore placed in the centre of the
+allied line, tightly wedged in between Romans and
+Visigoths, both of whom watched his movements
+narrowly and prevented him from accomplishing the
+meditated treachery.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Hunnish defeat.</i></div>
+
+<p>Beyond this statement as to the Alans, and Attila’s
+orders to his troops to neglect the Romans and
+strike hardest at the Visigoths, we hear little or
+nothing as to the tactics of the day. The battle
+began at three in the afternoon, and raged on, upon
+a line of immense length, till the end of the July day.
+Theodoric, the Visigothic king, was thrown from his
+horse and accidentally trampled to death by his own
+countrymen. His men, however, rushed forward
+and broke the Hunnish line. Attila himself fled
+and took shelter behind his rampart of waggons.
+Thorismund, son of Theodoric, and Aetius both
+lost their way in the darkness which had now
+come on, and nearly fell victims to their rashness,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>having actually wandered into the quarters of the
+foe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Results of the battle.</i></div>
+
+<p>The next morning dawned upon a ghastly sight.
+It is said that 177,000 men were slain in the ‘manifold
+and monstrous battle.’ This number represents
+a slaughter nearly twice as great as that at Leipsic,
+with all the improvements in the machinery of destruction
+which fifteen centuries have wrought. It
+is doubtful whether we ought to listen with perfect
+faith to calculations which were probably very hasty
+and fragmentary. But it is not doubtful that the
+slaughter on the Mauriac plain was one of the
+greatest ever witnessed on any battle-field before the
+invention of gunpowder. And, measured by its results,
+the battle was even greater than when we take
+account of the carnage. For this was pre-eminently
+one of ‘the decisive battles of history,’ since it
+settled the question of supremacy in Europe against
+the Hun, the squalid, unprogressive heathen Tartar,
+and kept the ground clear for the Romance, the
+Teutonic, and the Slavic peoples.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila retreats from Gaul. 451-2.</i></div>
+
+<p>The expectations of both armies that the battle
+would be renewed on the morrow were not fulfilled.
+Attila, behind his entrenchments, bade his trumpets
+sound, and feigned a fresh attack, but all the time he
+knew himself beaten, and had a pyre of Hunnish
+saddles prepared, into which, had his entrenchments
+been stormed, he would have cast himself headlong,
+that living or dead he might escape the insults of
+his foes. Meanwhile the Goths, having at length
+found their old king’s body, buried him on the battle-field
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>to the music of their rough war-songs. Thorismund
+then marched rapidly to Toulouse to claim his
+father’s throne. Aetius also quitted the field, and
+Attila was saved from utter destruction, whether
+owing to the too great prudence of the allies or to
+a want of perfect harmony between them, it is
+impossible now to determine. The Hunnish king
+reached the Rhine without further molestation, and
+thence sent the venerable Bishop Lupus back to
+Troyes, asking him to pray to the Almighty for the
+welfare of his late entertainer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila’s invasion of Italy, 452.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Siege of Aquileia.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Aquileia taken and destroyed.</i></div>
+
+<p>The next year (452) Attila determined to wipe out
+the shame of his defeat by an invasion, not this time
+of Gaul, but of Italy. He crossed the Julian Alps,
+entered Venetia by the well-known route, trodden of
+late by so many armies, and invested the great, the
+hitherto impregnable city of Aquileia. In two stubborn
+sieges at least, probably in more, this city had shown
+herself the unconquerable bulwark of North-east
+Italy; and now, so long was the investment by the
+Huns vainly protracted, that it seemed as if she
+would once more prove her title to that name. Attila
+was about to abandon the siege in despair, when
+suddenly looking up, he beheld the storks collecting
+their young broods about them and preparing to
+fly from the city. The omen struck him. He
+pointed it out to his soldiers, and in a short, inspiriting
+speech, urged them to renew their attack on
+a city which, as the heaven-guided instinct of the
+birds told them, was doomed to ruin. The appeal
+was fatally successful. The fierce Huns once more
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>moved their engines against the walls; they effected a
+practicable breach; they swarmed in; they slew, they
+pillaged, they ravished. The rage of Attila at his
+long detention before the walls made the usual
+savagery of Tartar destruction more savage; and
+soon there was nothing left of Aquileia—its Mint, its
+Baths, its Theatres—but a smoking heap of ruins.
+Tradition says that Attila caused a mound to be
+raised at Udine, twenty miles distant, and stood on
+the top of it to see the flames ascend from the
+burning city.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Other Adriatic cities ruined.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Founders of Venice.</i></div>
+
+<p>All the sister cities, beautiful and stately, which
+were mirrored in the waters of the North-western
+Adriatic, shared the fate of Aquileia. The Roman
+colony of Concordia; Altinum, with its fair white
+villas; Patavium, the birthplace of Livy, were
+levelled with the ground. A few trembling fugitives
+from all these cities, including, perhaps, some
+from Aquileia herself, sought shelter in the wide
+lagoons at the mouths of the Piave and the Brenta.
+These miserable refugees founded a gorgeous city,
+whose fame spread far and wide over all lands, and
+whose merchandise was sold even on those dreary
+plains of Central Asia over which Attila’s ancestors
+once wandered. She was the affianced City of the
+Sea—Venice.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Attila at Milan.</i></div>
+
+<p>Attila marched westwards through the broad green
+plain which we now call Lombardy, and as he went
+his fury somewhat abated. All the cities, Verona,
+Pavia, Milan, and the rest opened their gates to him;
+and in all, the Huns plundered at their will, but the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>lives of the inhabitants were spared and the buildings
+were left unburned. At Milan, Attila saw with
+contemptuous amusement a picture representing the
+Scythians prostrate under the feet of the Eastern and
+Western Emperors. He allowed the picture to
+remain, but ordered an artist to paint on the opposite
+wall the King of the Huns seated on his throne, with
+Theodosius and Valentinian emptying their sacks of
+<i>aurei</i> at his feet.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Embassy of Pope Leo.</i></div>
+
+<p>During all this time abject terror reigned in the
+City of Rome, where, and not at Ravenna, the
+Emperor appears to have been residing. Even the
+stout heart of Aetius seems to have failed him, and
+he is said to have counselled Valentinian to flee from
+Italy, probably to the Narbonensian Gaul, almost the
+only Western province which was left to Rome.
+However, it was decided to try what effect a humble
+embassy might have in mitigating the wrath of the
+terrible Hun. Two of the highest officials in the
+Empire were sent on this embassy, and with them
+went Pope Leo I, greatest in character and mental
+gifts of all the men who had yet sat in the chair of
+St. Peter, rightly named Leo, for a more lion-hearted
+man had not been found even among the Consuls
+and Emperors of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Its success.</i></div>
+
+<p>The embassy found the Hunnish king by the
+banks of the Mincio, probably not far from the city
+of Mantua. Strange to say, they won a peaceful and
+easy victory. ‘&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>&#x2060;He laid aside his fury and excitement,
+and returning by the way that he had come, that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>is to say beyond the Danube, he departed with the
+promise of peace, uttering, however, this one warning
+and threat above all others, that he would bring
+yet heavier calamities upon Italy unless they sent to
+him Honoria, with the portion of the Imperial
+treasure which was her due.’ We shall probably
+seek in vain for any reasons of state-craft which
+could have induced Attila thus to forego the supreme
+prize of barbarian conquest, the sack of Rome, when
+victory lay ready to his hand. Apparently the
+reason assigned by contemporary chroniclers is the
+true one. It was the influence exerted over him by
+the saintly majesty of Leo, which induced him to
+sheathe the sword and to be satisfied with promise
+of tribute when he might have grasped the reality of
+plunder. There was in Attila’s character, with all
+its brutal savageness, something almost like magnanimity,
+a certain readiness, when his own greatness
+was acknowledged and when his enemy had humbled
+himself in the dust before him, to accept his humiliation,
+and if he trampled, not to trample him to death.
+There was also in his heathen soul some capacity of
+being impressed by those whose spirits really rose
+above the clash of the kingdoms of the world, into
+the serener air of the Kingdom of God. There may
+possibly have been mingled with this feeling a
+remembrance of the premature death of Alaric which
+followed so soon upon his conquest of the Eternal
+City, and a fear that he too, if he sacked Rome,
+might find his grave in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the cause, there can be no doubt that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>the success of Pope Leo, when the Emperor and the
+Master of the Soldiery confessed that they saw only
+ruin before them, profoundly stirred the hearts of
+the Roman people. The events of the year 452
+contributed enormously to raise the Vatican above
+the Palatine, and to give the Pope the moral, if not
+yet the political, sovereignty of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of Attila, 453.</i></div>
+
+<p>If Attila had planned for himself the luxury of
+another raid upon Italy in 453, his schemes were
+suddenly and unexpectedly frustrated. In addition
+to the many wives whom he already possessed, he
+married a beautiful damsel named Ildico. At the
+wedding banquet he drank copiously, and afterwards
+slept the sleep of intoxication. In the midst of it he
+was attacked by a violent bleeding from the nose,
+which proved fatal to him in his drunken stupor.
+That same night, it is said, the brave Emperor
+Marcian had a dream, in which he saw the bow of
+Attila broken.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Hunnish power broken. 454.</i></div>
+
+<p>The great Hunnish king received a magnificent
+burial from his people. Three coffins, one of gold,
+one of silver, one of iron, enclosed his body, but
+the precise place of his burial was kept a secret.
+After his death the ascendancy which by his own
+tremendous force of character he had been able to
+exert over many subject nations, suddenly vanished.
+His sons proposed to partition his realm among themselves.
+The auxiliary peoples resented the proposal:
+the great confederacy was broken up: Ostrogoths,
+Gepidae, and Heruli met the young Hunnish kings
+in battle by the Pannonian river Netad. Attila’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>sons were beaten, his first-born slain, the rest put
+to flight. Ernak, his father’s favourite, became a
+subject-ally of the Eastern Emperor, and ruled at
+the mouth of the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>But the great Hunnish Empire after its short and
+terrible day of dominion was now a thing of the past,
+a vanished nightmare of the nations. The fierce
+Hun had himself built nothing that endured, though
+indirectly he had contributed to three of the greatest
+changes in Europe,—the ‘making of England,’ the
+establishment of the Papal Supremacy, the foundation
+of Venice.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LECTURE_VII">LECTURE VII.<br>
+<span class="smcap">Gaiseric.</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>We have seen that though the north-east corner
+of Italy was cruelly ravaged by the Huns, the Eternal
+City herself escaped the degradation of their
+presence as conquerors. But the blow, which had
+been averted by the embassy of Pope Leo, fell three
+years later (455), the agents of destruction being
+now, not the Huns, but the <span class="smcap">Vandals</span>. I purposely
+abstained in my last lecture from making any but
+the slightest allusion to the Vandal conquest of
+Africa (428-439), though that was in fact one of the
+most important events under the government of
+Placidia, and certainly the event which produced
+the most permanently disastrous consequences for
+Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Early history of the Vandals.</i></div>
+
+<p>If we go back from the fifth century after Christ
+to the first, we shall find that the Vandals were then
+dwelling not far from the Baltic coast in the countries
+which we now call West Prussia and Posen.
+A little later on, sharing the general southward
+movement of all these races, they appear in Silesia
+and give their name to the <i>Vandalici Montes</i>, which
+are the same that are now called Riesengebirge, the
+Mountains of the Giants. Possibly there may be in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>the new name some dim remembrance of the old, for
+we are told&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> that the Vandals, as well as the Gepidae,
+were nearly allied in blood to the Goths, and like
+them were tall of stature, fair-skinned, yellow-haired,
+and handsome.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Marcus Aurelius (171) we find
+them in the plains of Hungary warring against the
+Romans. Three years later they have become the
+allies of Rome, and this attitude of friendship towards
+the Empire is generally maintained by them
+for more than two centuries (174-406). Especially
+was this the case in the latter part of the reign of
+the Emperor Constantine (330), when the Vandals
+had suffered a terrible and well-nigh exterminating
+defeat at the hands of their Gothic kindred, by the
+banks of the river Marisia. The survivors of that
+terrible day humbly pleaded for permission to enter
+the province of Pannonia on the western shore of
+the Danube, and there to dwell as <i>foederati</i> under
+the protection of the Empire. For more than sixty
+years they faithfully observed this treaty. This was
+probably the time in which they embraced the Christian
+faith under that Arian form of it which Ulfilas
+had preached to the Goths. Many of their chiefs
+doubtless entered the service of the Emperors as
+life-guardsmen, and it was probably in this way that
+the father of the great Stilicho, though a Vandal,
+rose high enough to prepare a splendid position for
+his son.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Vandals enter Gaul, 406.</i></div>
+
+<p>The calumniators of Stilicho attributed to him,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>probably most unjustly, a share in the next development
+of Vandal history. It came to pass in the year
+406, in the interval of suspense between the first
+and second invasions of Alaric, and just after the
+exhausting campaign with the terrible Radagaisus,
+that (as has been already mentioned) three great
+barbarian hordes, taking advantage of the defenceless
+state of the Rhine-frontier, denuded of its
+legions for the defence of Italy, poured westwards
+into the provinces of Gaul. These three tribes were
+the <i>Suevi</i>, a name of puzzling indefiniteness, once including
+almost all the High-German family of nations;
+the <i>Alans</i>, a Tartar horde who had come
+into Europe at the same time as the Huns, but had
+pressed further westwards than their kinsmen; and
+the <i>Vandals</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>War with the Franks.</i></div>
+
+<p>If Stilicho had anything whatever to do with the
+invitation or the permission given to these barbarian
+hordes to enter Gaul, it is probable&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> that he did it in
+the hope of finding in them a counterpoise to the
+Franks, who were already appearing with menacing
+strength in the north-eastern provinces of that
+country. At any rate the Franks are the only enemy
+that we hear of as attempting to bar their way. A
+great battle was fought, in which Godigisclus, the
+Vandal king, fell with 20,000 of his followers, and
+only the timely intervention of Respendial, King of
+the Alans, saved the Vandals from utter destruction.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Three years of ravage, 407-409.</i></div>
+
+<p>Of the three years which followed (407-409) we
+know nothing, but must imagine the three confederated
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>nations marching up and down in Gaul
+during that period, slaying and plundering at their
+will. Then, by the internal discords of the Empire,
+a fresh prospect of rapine was opened out before
+them. The British usurper, Constantine, who had
+penetrated with his legions into Spain, found his
+precarious throne undermined by one of his officers
+named Gerontius, who proclaimed his son Maximus
+Emperor. While usurper and sub-usurper were
+quarrelling, the defence of the Empire, which both
+pretended to maintain, was neglected. The passes
+of the Pyrenees, which had hitherto been easily and
+faithfully guarded, were left open to the enemy, and
+the three confederate nations marching through
+them, found the rich and fruitful peninsula of Spain,
+which had enjoyed four centuries of unbroken peace,
+at their mercy. The day of the month, even the day
+of the week of this terrible invasion, was recorded by
+the Spanish chroniclers, faithfully reproducing the
+deep dint which it had made on the memories of
+their countrymen.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Vandals and their confederates enter Spain, 28 Sept. 409.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>413.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘In this year’ (409) ‘the Alani and Wandali and
+Suevi entered the provinces of Spain, on the 28th
+of September, on the third day of the week&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a>&#x2060;.’ After
+wandering about for some time, enjoying the luxury
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>of promiscuous pillage, they divided the country in
+some rough fashion between them, the Suevi taking
+to themselves Gallicia in the north-western corner of
+Spain, the Alans, Lusitania on the west and the
+province of Carthagena on the east. The Vandals
+were divided into two branches, the smaller of whom,
+the Asdingi, dwelt in Gallicia near to the Suevi,
+while the powerful clan of the Silingi occupied the
+fertile province of Baetica in the south. To these
+entered, four years after, the Visigoths under Ataulfus:
+and by these four, or if we choose so to consider
+them, five barbarian nations, as well as by the
+Roman garrisons in the strong cities which remained
+like islands amid the barbarian flood, the hapless provinces
+of Spain were ruled and plundered. Famine
+soon followed in the train of war. Women were
+accused of eating their own children: and some
+Visigothic soldiers bought of some Vandals a small
+mug-full of wheat for an aureus (= 12 shillings).</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Internecine war between the barbarians in Spain,
+413-428.</i></div>
+
+<p>I need not trouble you with the details of the wars
+which raged in Spain from 413 to 428. The Visigoths
+were generally in alliance with the Empire,
+and fought their fellow-barbarians, especially the
+Vandals, with whom they had a long-standing family
+quarrel, with a ferocity which astonished the Romans.
+First the Silingian Vandals in Baetica and
+then the Alans sustained crushing defeats at their
+hands: and the scanty remnants of these tribes
+joined themselves to the Asdingian Vandals, who
+under their king Gunderic, son of Godigisclus, had
+now, from the most insignificant, become the most
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>powerful nation in the Peninsula, especially as the
+Visigoths at this time seem to have withdrawn most
+of their men north of the Pyrenees, being intent on
+building up their dominion in Southern Gaul.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Vandals occupy Andalusia, 420.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of King Gunderic, 427.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Accession of Gaiseric.</i></div>
+
+<p>In 420 the Asdingian Vandals, with their dependents
+the Alans marched across Spain and took
+up their quarters in the fertile Baetica, where their
+kinsmen formerly dwelt. In 422, Gunderic won a
+decisive victory over Castinus, the Roman Master
+of the Soldiery, leaving 20,000 Imperial soldiers
+dead upon the field. In 425 he took the great city
+of Hispalis (Seville), and fitted out a naval expedition
+for the conquest of the Balearic Islands. In
+427 Gunderic died,—‘attacked by a demon,’ says a
+Spanish chronicler, ‘by the just judgment of God,
+to punish him for having stretched forth his hand
+against the Church of Seville,’ and he was succeeded
+by <span class="smcap">Gaiseric</span>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>&#x2060;, the illegitimate son of his
+father Godigisclus.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Gaiseric invited by Count Bonifacius to enter Africa, 427.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such was the position of affairs in Spain when a
+messenger came from Bonifacius, Count of Africa,
+inviting the Vandals to cross the sea and wrest that
+province from the Empire. The cause of this strange
+proposition is fully told us by one historian&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>&#x2060;, writing
+a hundred years after the event, and though accurate
+and trustworthy for his own times, very apt to confuse
+persons and places of which he had no personal
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>knowledge. His narrative has been lately subjected
+to a severe analysis by a great master of historical
+criticism&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>&#x2060;, who has shown how many questionable
+elements it contains. Still, in the absence of all
+other information, it holds the field, and I will therefore,
+with this caution, tell the story in the words of
+Procopius himself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Procopius’s story of the rivalry between Aetius and Bonifacius.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘The calamity of Africa came to pass in this fashion.
+There were two Roman generals, Aetius and Bonifacius,
+both able men, and in knowledge of the art of
+war second to none of their time. Between these
+men jealousies arose as to the government of the
+Empire: but so great were their magnanimity and
+other virtues that if any one were to call each of
+them the last of the Romans he would not be far
+from the truth, so completely had all the glory of
+Rome become merged in these two men. One of
+these two men, Bonifacius, Placidia set over the
+whole of Africa, hereby offending Aetius, who, however,
+did not show his displeasure, for the ill-feeling
+between them had not yet produced an open rupture,
+but was hidden under the mask of friendship.</p>
+
+<p>‘Now when Bonifacius had departed for Africa,
+Aetius began to calumniate him to Placidia as a man
+who aspired to the Imperial dignity and would wrest
+Africa from her and the Emperor. He assured her
+that it would not be difficult to bring this matter
+to the test, for if she summoned Bonifacius to Rome,
+he would not come. When the lady heard this, she
+approved and followed the advice of Aetius. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>latter, however, had previously written secretly to
+Bonifacius that the Emperor’s mother was laying
+snares for his destruction, and as a token of the
+truth of his assertion he told him that he would find
+himself without cause suddenly recalled. Hearkening
+to this warning of Aetius but keeping a profound
+silence concerning it, when the messengers arrived to
+invite him to the Imperial Court he declared that he
+would not obey the Emperor or his mother either.
+Placidia, on the receipt of this news, looked upon
+Aetius as a most faithful servant of the throne, but
+regarded Bonifacius with suspicion. The latter, feeling
+himself unable to cope with the power of the
+Emperor, yet accounting himself a doomed man if he
+started for Rome, began to consider how he could
+attach the Vandals to his cause, who had obtained
+possession of the neighbouring province of Spain.
+Bonifacius, then, having sent to Spain certain of the
+most influential of his friends, concluded a treaty on
+terms of equality with both the sons of Godigisclus,
+to the effect that each of them should receive a third
+part of Africa, and that if any one of the three were
+attacked in war, his danger should be shared by the
+other two.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>War between Vandals and Suevi.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>428. Numbering of the people.</i></div>
+
+<p>So far Procopius. It will be seen that he makes
+Bonifacius send his invitation to both Kings of the
+Vandals, but if this were so, certainly before the
+departure of the host from Spain, Gunderic was
+dead and Gaiseric was sole ruler of his nation.
+While he was engaged in his preparations for departure,
+the King of the Suevi made a devastating
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>inroad on the northern part of the Vandal possessions.
+To show that he was not yet to be thus
+contumeliously ignored even on Spanish territory,
+Gaiseric suspended his African projects for a while,
+turned round and inflicted on the Suevi a bloody
+defeat, after which their king was drowned in the
+waters of the Gaudiana. Then resuming his plans for
+the descent upon Africa, he collected his people
+(or rather his two peoples, for he was now always
+saluted as King of the Vandals and Alans) upon the
+sunny Andalusian shore. Here in the month of
+May, 428&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>&#x2060;, he had his nation-army numbered, and
+found all the males, including old men and little
+children, to amount to 80,000. Another computation,
+which it is difficult to reconcile with this unless the
+limits of age for military service were very wide,
+makes the warriors alone amount to 50,000 men.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>The Vandals transported to Africa.</i></div>
+
+<p>The ships which Bonifacius, Count of Africa,
+supplied from the great port of Carthage, co-operating
+with the little fleet of Gaiseric, carried this great
+mass of persons, certainly not fewer than 160,000 in
+number, to the African coast and landed them,
+probably in the province of Numidia. Thus was the
+dream of Alaric realised by another German chieftain,
+and thus did the intrigues and counter-intrigues of
+Roman officials enable a Teutonic invader to strike
+at Rome in her most vulnerable point, the great
+grain-producing provinces of Africa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>428. Bonifacius repents of his treason and is reconciled
+to Placidia.</i></div>
+
+<p>Scarcely had the Vandals landed on the African
+coast when the alliance between them and Bonifacius,
+born of treachery and misunderstanding, died in the
+daylight of truth. To resume the narrative of
+Procopius. ‘All those at Rome who were well acquainted
+with Bonifacius, reflecting on his character
+and the extreme improbability of his being so far
+carried away by the desire of reigning, were filled
+with wonder at what had taken place. Some of
+these persons, by order of Placidia, proceeded to
+Carthage, conversed with Bonifacius, saw the letters
+of Aetius, and understanding the whole intrigue
+returned with all speed to Rome and explained the
+position in which Bonifacius had been placed.
+Placidia, filled with astonishment, did not dare
+openly to blame Aetius, so great was his power and
+so necessary his help, in the lamentable state into
+which the Empire was falling. But calling for the
+friends of Bonifacius, she explained to them the
+secret counsels of Aetius, and binding them to
+secrecy by an oath adjured them, if it were possible,
+to recall him to the love of his country, and not to
+allow the Roman Empire to fall under the yoke of
+the barbarians. When Bonifacius understood all
+these things, he was filled with repentance for his
+late designs and for the treaty which he had made
+with the barbarians, and besought them, with the
+lure of many promises, that they would depart from
+Africa. But as the Vandals would not listen to his
+words, but rather taunted him with his broken faith
+towards them, he was forced to engage in battle with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>them, and being defeated withdrew to Hippo Regius,
+a very strong city by the sea-coast of Numidia.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Siege of Hippo, June, 430 to July, 431.</i></div>
+
+<p>‘As the Vandals after a long time could neither
+take Hippo by storm nor induce it to surrender,
+and were moreover themselves beginning to suffer
+from hunger, they broke up the siege. Not long
+after, Bonifacius and the Romans under his command
+joined forces with an army sent from Byzantium
+under the command of Aspar, and dared to try the
+fortune of war in a great pitched battle, but being
+much inferior to the enemy, they fled whither they
+could, and Aspar returned to his own land. But
+Bonifacius betook himself to the Court of Placidia,
+and there completely purged himself of the suspicions
+which had been entertained of him.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>432.</i></div>
+
+<p>From other sources we learn that Placidia not
+only forgave Bonifacius but received him into high
+favour, and conferred upon him the dignity of Master
+of the Soldiery. Apparently he would have supplanted
+Aetius in his position of Chief Counsellor
+of the Empress and virtual ruler of the Empire, but
+at this moment Aetius returned with his army from
+a victorious campaign against the Franks, and joined
+battle with his foe. Aetius was defeated, but Bonifacius
+lost his life, according to one account, in single
+combat with his rival, and, strange to say, in the act
+of dying, adjured his wife to re-marry with Aetius if
+the death of <i>his</i> wife should make such wedlock
+possible, as he and no other of living Romans was
+worthy to be the successor as he had been the
+conqueror of Bonifacius.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Strange character of this story.</i></div>
+
+<p>The whole story of the rivalry of these two
+Imperial generals is strange, romantic, almost self-contradictory.
+Contemporary annalists scarcely mention
+it; later historians tell us a good deal which
+it is hardly possible that they could have known.
+We should be disposed to send it back into the
+region of romance, to which it seems properly to
+belong, but for this one clear and all-important fact—that
+the Roman governor of Africa did himself
+promote the passage of the Vandals into his province,
+and only when it was too late and the irretrievable
+mischief was done, turned against them,
+and by vain threats and vainer promises, sought to
+persuade them to leave the fruitful land into which
+he had given them entrance.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Result of the Vandal migrations.</i></div>
+
+<p>Thus, then, at length were the dwellers by the
+Elbe and the Oder settled on the southern shore of
+the Mediterranean. In 406 they were in Pannonia,
+in 439 in Carthage. Thirty-three years, the ordinary
+length of a generation, had brought them from
+Austria to Tunis, and in their way they had ravaged
+Languedoc and set up a short-lived kingdom in
+Andalusia. Remembering always that it was not
+a mere army, but a nation, which thus roamed over
+mountains and rivers and changed its place of abode
+from continent to continent, we feel that the period
+of history of which we are now treating is indeed
+well named by the Germans <i>Völker-wanderung</i>,
+‘the migration of the nations.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Death of St. Augustine during the siege of Hippo, 28 Aug. 430.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">‘<i>Vandalism.</i>’</div>
+
+<p>The siege of Hippo Regius (Bona), which has
+been already alluded to by Procopius, lasted for
+a little more than thirteen months (June 430 to July
+431), and was, as has been already said, one of the
+few failures of the Vandals. It was memorable in
+the history of the Church, because the Bishop of
+Hippo—the greatest of all the bishops of the African
+Church—St. Augustine, was present within the city
+at its commencement, and died in the third month of
+the blockade. His biographer, Possidius, Bishop of
+Calama, was with him at the end; and from his
+hand we have an interesting picture of the venerable
+old man’s last days, sitting, as he did, surrounded by
+bishops from the whole province of Africa, who had
+seen their cities burned, their churches levelled
+with the ground, the fruit-trees of the agriculturists
+torn up by the roots. It was the fury of this first
+onslaught, and the especial delight taken by the
+heretical barbarians in the destruction of churches,
+which caused their name to become a synonym
+for the demolishers of beautiful buildings. Practically,
+when we speak of Vandalism, we now generally
+think of some brutal outrage perpetrated on a temple
+or a statue; and this in the fifth century would be
+more probably the work of fanatic monk than of
+Vandal barbarian. But the deeds of the followers
+of Gaiseric during the first fury of their conquest, and
+afterwards, were sufficiently brutal to excuse the
+opprobrium which the usage of fourteen centuries
+has linked indissolubly with their name.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Temporary peace with the Empire, 11 Feb. 435.</i></div>
+
+<p>After seven years of desolating warfare, peace was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>concluded between Gaiseric and the Empire. Aetius
+no doubt recognised that the fatal work of Bonifacius
+could not be undone, nor the 50,000 Vandal
+and Alan warriors (reinforced probably by many
+Moorish nomads and ruined Roman Provincials)
+be forced to relinquish their prey. On his part
+Gaiseric had had enough of plundering; he wished
+now to occupy and to rule, and he meant to make
+the Romans pay a costly price for the peace which
+he was willing to concede to them. The strong
+city of Hippo, which he had failed to conquer by
+force of arms, became his as the result of negotiation.
+He had Numidia and the larger part of the African
+territory secured to him as his lawful possession,
+perhaps on the promised payment of a yearly
+tribute&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> to the Emperor, and he had to promise
+to leave unmolested Carthage, the capital of the
+Roman Diocese and that part of the Province which
+immediately adjoined it, a rich and fertile district
+certainly, and the gem of the whole dominion.
+His son Huneric was sent to Rome as a hostage for
+the fulfilment of this condition.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Gaiseric pounces on Carthage, 19 Oct. 439.</i></div>
+
+<p>The peace seemed like a confession of something
+like failure on the part of the Vandal conqueror.
+But he had only ‘recoiled in order to make a bolder
+spring.’ He waited his time; on some pretence or
+other he obtained the return of his hostage-son, and
+then, while Aetius was busy warring with the Visigoths
+in Gaul, and Attila from his Hungarian
+village was beginning to worry Placidia with his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>embassies and his armaments, suddenly, on the 19th
+of October, 439, Gaiseric entered Carthage and
+made all the vast wealth of the African capital his
+own. Torture was freely used to compel some
+of the citizens to yield up to him their hidden
+stores.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Appearance and character of Gaiseric.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Vandal king had now reached, apparently,
+the summit of his ambition. Lord of the Roman
+Provinces of Africa and of the great city of Carthage,
+he felt himself indeed a king; and whatever title he
+may have borne before, he dated his reign—a reign
+which lasted thirty-seven years—from this conquest.
+Like Ataulfus, like Attila (one might add, like
+Napoleon and like Wellington), he was somewhat
+under the usual size, and he had a limp in his gait
+owing to a fall from his horse. He was, by the consenting
+testimony of all contemporary historians, a
+man of great ability, admirably preparing his means
+to compass the desired ends, simple in his habits, of
+few words, patient, and tenacious of purpose; but on
+the other hand, sullen in his wrath, covetous, always
+stirring up strife and vexing the nations, and
+absolutely ruthless towards all who crossed his
+path&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>&#x2060;. In Alaric, notwithstanding some outbursts of
+barbaric rage, there was much that was chivalrous
+and noble. Even the dark soul of Attila was irradiated
+with fitful gleams of generosity and compassion.
+But in Gaiseric I do not think we can discern
+a single lineament of nobleness. All is hard, cruel,
+vulgar in his remorseless soul. Alas that we must
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>add, all is also successful in his life. This cruel and
+greedy, but supremely able barbarian succeeded
+where the nobler Alaric and the gentler Ataulfus
+had failed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>His maritime power and piratical expeditions.</i></div>
+
+<p>His magnificent power of adapting means to ends
+was well displayed in the change which he made in
+the habits of his nation after he had become master
+of Carthage. The Vandals, who had dwelt so long on
+the skirts of the Riesengebirge, in the highlands
+of Austria, or in the plains of Hungary, were essentially
+an inland people, who only dabbled a little in
+seamanship, when they reached the Andalusian
+shore. But now that the fleets, the arsenal, the
+docks of Carthage were all their own, now that
+its harbour—one of the finest in the Old World—reflected
+everywhere the Vandal flag, they became
+under Gaiseric’s guidance the first naval power on
+the Mediterranean, and he, by a singular anticipation
+of the history of the Barbary States in later
+days, made himself the great Buccaneer-King.
+With every returning spring his long ships of war
+were made ready in the harbour. Sometimes he
+ravaged Sicily, sometimes the southern coasts of
+Italy, leading the inhabitants of one city into captivity,
+throwing down the walls of another, wasting
+the whole country with his wide-reaching raids. Then
+when the very poverty of these lands frighted him
+away from their devastated shores, he turned to the
+Eastern Empire. Illyricum, Peloponnesus, the islands
+of the Ionian and Aegean seas, all that bore the name
+of Hellas, bewailed the visits of Gaiseric. Then to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>Italy and Sicily again, to try if there were any nook
+which had hitherto escaped his visitations. At
+length the work became almost monotonous, and
+the choice of a victim hard. Once when the fleet
+had weighed anchor and was sailing forth from the
+broad harbour of Carthage, the helmsman turned to
+the king and asked for what port he should steer.
+‘For the men with whom God is angry,’ answered
+the Vandal king, and left the winds and the waters
+to settle the question who were the proper objects of
+the wrath of Heaven.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Vandal land-settlement.</i></div>
+
+<p>The land-settlement of the Vandals and the order
+of succession to the Vandal throne were two subjects
+to which Gaiseric’s legislative energies were especially
+directed. (1) The rich Province in which Carthage
+was situated, called Zeugitana, or the Proconsular
+Province, the last of all the acquisitions of the
+Vandals, was portioned out among the warriors of
+the nation, who received these estates as an inheritance
+to be transmitted to their children, and
+who paid no taxes of any kind for them. In the
+other Provinces, far larger in extent but not nearly
+so fertile in quality, lay the vast domains of Gaiseric
+and his sons, consisting of estates forcibly taken
+away from their Roman owners, often men of culture
+and noble birth, who were in some cases compelled
+to cultivate as slaves the lands of which the invader
+had despoiled them. The poor and barren lands
+were for the most part left to their former owners,
+but so burdened with taxes and obligations of service
+that the unhappy possessors could barely make a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>livelihood out of them. Many of these unhappy
+possessors tried to flee, but were arrested and
+executed, sundry grievous charges being brought
+against them, especially the one unforgivable sin of
+concealing treasure from Gaiseric. ‘Thus,’ as the
+historian&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> says, ‘did the Provincials of Africa fall
+into every kind of misery.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Law of succession to the throne.</i></div>
+
+<p>(2) As for the succession to the throne, in order
+to avert the rivalries and civil wars which often
+resulted from the elective character of Teutonic
+royalty, and at the same time to prevent the crown
+from being worn by a fatuous boy like Honorius or
+Valentinian, he ordained that the oldest living male
+among his descendants should, on the death of each
+reigning monarch, ascend the Vandal throne. The
+law was like that which has regulated the succession
+of the Ottoman Sultans and the Egyptian Pashas.
+It worked smoothly for near sixty years after the
+death of Gaiseric, who was succeeded by his eldest
+son Huneric, he by his two nephews, Gunthamund
+and Thrasamund, and the latter of these by his
+cousin Hilderic, the son of Huneric. Then dissensions
+broke out: Hilderic was dethroned and finally
+put to death by his cousin Gelimer, but religious
+differences—for Gelimer was an Arian and Hilderic
+a Catholic—were the chief cause of these disputes,
+for which I am not sure that we can fairly blame the
+Vandal law of succession.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Persecution of the Catholics.</i></div>
+
+<p>In this allusion to religious differences I have
+touched upon that which was the distinguishing and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>the shameful characteristic of the Vandal kingdom,
+especially under Gaiseric and his son; I mean, their
+brutal persecution of the Catholics. In their profession
+of Arianism the Vandals, as we have seen,
+only followed the example of all the other barbarian
+nations who had embraced Christianity in any form.
+Naturally Attila, who worshipped a naked sword,
+while hating all priests and coveting their costly Communion-plate,
+was under no temptation to treat the
+orthodox believers in the Homoousion worse than the
+Arian believers in the Homoiousion (if any such there
+yet remained), but would slay both with ferocious impartiality.
+Naturally, too, the still heathen ancestors
+of Clovis robbed and murdered the Catholic bishops
+of Belgic Gaul simply as rich and civilised men,
+without any special antipathy to them on account of
+their Catholicism. With the Visigoths, Suevi, and
+Burgundians the case was different. They were
+parties to the long Arian lawsuit, and were disposed
+to depress, and sometimes to harass, the Athanasian
+litigants on the other side, but they did not
+systematically persecute, and there are few if any
+instances of Catholics actually put to death by
+them for their faith.</p>
+
+<p>Gaiseric, however, seems to have hugged his
+Arian belief with the fanatical love of a convert, and
+to have hated the Nicene Confession with the bitter
+hatred of an apostate. It was indeed reported&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>Spain that such was the very truth, that he had
+been once a Catholic and had ‘apostatised to the
+Arian infidelity’: but it is difficult to understand
+how the son of King Godigisclus can have been
+brought up in the Athanasian faith, unless his
+illegitimate birth permitted him to be trained by
+his mother, probably a Gaulish concubine of the
+king, in the despised faith of the Roman Provincials.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the cause there can be no doubt that
+Gaiseric detested the Catholic faith, the faith of the
+vast majority of his new subjects, and showed that
+detestation by acts of savage cruelty. The churches
+were not merely plundered—that the barbarian
+hunger for gold would sufficiently account for—but
+wantonly burned: and insult was sometimes added
+to rapine, as when the beautiful altar-cloths were cut
+up and made into shirts and drawers for the grooms of
+a barbarian officer. In the regions which paid tribute
+to the Palace the bishops were accused of stirring
+up the people to revolt, and of likening the king to
+Pharaoh, Holofernes, and Nebuchadnezzar: and a
+number of them were sent into exile. The Bishop of
+Carthage, with several of his clergy, was sent to sea
+in a crazy ship, which it was hoped would founder on
+the voyage, but arrived safe but penniless on the
+shores of Campania. The Metropolitan Church of
+Carthage was forbidden to elect any successor to the
+exile, and seems to have remained for twenty years
+or more ‘widowed of its bishop.’ The same measure
+was meted out to a great number of African Churches,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>evidently with the intention of breaking down their
+episcopal organisation for ever.</p>
+
+<p>In his own palace Gaiseric seemed as if he could
+not endure the presence of an adherent of the rival
+creed. Sebastian, the son-in-law of Bonifacius,
+though a man who was on other grounds acceptable
+at Court and influential with the king, was put
+to death because he refused to change his religion.
+Count Armogast, for the same refusal, was stretched
+upon the rack, hung head downwards from the
+ceiling by one foot, and at last sent to do the work
+of a ditcher and a shepherd in the fields, where he
+soon died of his hardships.</p>
+
+<p>These and many similar stories which are told us
+by Victor Vitensis, show the intense and bitter animosity
+of the great Vandal against all who refused
+to accept what the ecclesiastical historians call ‘the
+Arian infidelity.’ At the same time they fail to bring
+before us any well-concerted and systematic scheme
+of persecution, which could by possibility have rooted
+out the Catholic faith from Africa. Gaiseric was
+evidently no Diocletian, with sad thoroughness undertaking
+to eradicate a hostile faith in order to fulfil his
+duty to the State. Nor was he a Louis XIV, organising
+dragonnades and revoking edicts of toleration in
+order that he might keep his mistresses and yet save
+his soul. He was essentially a barbarian, though
+a clever one, with all that intolerance of opposition
+which is shown not by barbarians only when</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Dressed in a little brief authority.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">He could not bear that any of those about him should
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>dare to belong to any other than ‘the King’s religion,’
+and he tortured, degraded, banished, at last sometimes
+even killed, in order to punish those who
+differed from him for their independence.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the character and such the past career
+of the founder of the great Buccaneer State. We
+have now to glance at the course of events which, in
+the year 455, brought him across the sea to Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Family relations of Valentinian III.</i></div>
+
+<p>Valentinian III, in the year 437, when he had
+reached the age of eighteen, went on a visit of state
+to his cousin, Theodosius II, at Constantinople, and
+returned bringing with him that cousin’s daughter as
+a bride. She bore the name which, with slight
+modifications, had been borne by two previous
+generations of Imperial ladies in the palace at Constantinople,
+Eudoxia or Eudocia. Of this marriage
+there was no male issue, but two daughters were
+born to the Imperial pair, Eudoxia and Placidia.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>His jealousy of Aetius.</i></div>
+
+<p>On the death of Attila (453) the thought, the base
+thought, began to insinuate itself into the mind of
+Valentinian that he had now less need of the services
+of the great minister, Aetius. Men called that
+minister ‘the great safeguard of the Western
+Commonwealth and the terror of Attila&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>&#x2060;.’ His
+praises were sung with wearisome repetition, and
+the very presence of the strenuous, care-worn warrior
+was an oppression and a rebuke to the frivolous
+Emperor who ‘reigned but did not govern.’ The
+growing dislike, now that the wise Placidia was laid
+in the grave, could be fostered at their pleasure by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>the mischief-making lacqueys of the palace, and one
+of these, the eunuch Heraclius, for ever seeming to
+anticipate the Emperor’s wishes, and really making
+him the tool of his own base designs, had begun to
+talk of possible means of freeing Valentinian from
+the yoke of his minister and making him master in
+his own house. Hints of treachery reached the ears
+of Aetius, and to secure himself he pressed the
+Emperor to exchange with him solemn oaths of
+mutual faith. At the same time a scheme which had
+probably been for some time talked of, and which
+seemed to promise the undisturbed succession to the
+throne of a hero’s son, received its final ratification.
+Valentinian promised to give one of his daughters in
+marriage to Gaudentius&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>&#x2060;, the son of Aetius.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>454. Valentinian murders Aetius.</i></div>
+
+<p>Such was the state of affairs, a hollow crust of
+reconciliation and plighted vows over the red-hot
+lava of hatred and suspicion, when one day Aetius
+entered the palace and had an interview with the
+Emperor. He spoke of the covenant entered into
+between them: he perhaps urged the completion of
+the marriage at once, and hinted that his master was
+seeking to evade the fulfilment of his promise.
+Valentinian was, or feigned to be, enraged against
+his importunate petitioner. He struck Aetius a
+blow: the swords of the surrounding courtiers, we
+are told, ‘cruelly finished the work.’ The last of the
+Romans was lying dead at the feet of one of the
+meanest of the Caesars. Along with Aetius fell one
+of his friends, bearer of a name destined to European
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>celebrity,—Boetius, an ancestor of the author of the
+‘Consolation of Philosophy.’</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the foul deed had been done Valentinian
+asked a Roman nobleman if he had done well in
+slaying Aetius. ‘Well done, or ill done, most noble
+Augustus, I am hardly able to decide. But I know
+one thing, that you have chopped off your right hand
+with your left.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Vengeance on Valentinian. 455.</i></div>
+
+<p>The death of Aetius, which probably occurred
+towards the end of 454, remained not long unavenged.
+Valentinian, who with all his many vices does not
+appear to have been a coward, allowed the friends
+and retainers of the murdered man to approach him
+without hindrance. He supposed that what his
+flatterers told him was true, and that the deed of the
+Emperor of Rome would be accepted as if it were
+the decree of heaven by his adoring subjects. Little
+did he know the longing for revenge which filled the
+hearts of the barbarian guardsmen of Aetius, who,
+like the <i>Comitatus</i> of a German chief, deemed themselves
+for ever disgraced by the unrequited murder
+of their lord. On the 16th of March, 455, Valentinian
+rode forth from the City to a place called ‘the Two
+Laurels,’ to watch some contest (perhaps a wrestling
+match) which was going forward. While he was
+intent on the spectacle two henchmen of Aetius,
+named Optila and Thraustila&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a>&#x2060;—their names reveal
+their barbarian origin—approached and ‘stabbed
+him with unexpected blows&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a>&#x2060;.’ The eunuch Heraclius,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>who had been his accomplice in the murder
+of Aetius, was slain at the same time.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Accession of Maximus.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>His marriage with Eudoxia.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>455.</i></div>
+
+<p>With the death of Valentinian the dynasty of
+Theodosius came to an end, his cousin Pulcheria,
+the Augusta at Constantinople, having died two years
+before (453). The person who was chosen to succeed
+him was Maximus, an elderly Senator, a man who had
+been twice Consul, and had filled various offices of
+the State with credit and distinction. The hopes
+which had been formed of a wise and honourable
+administration of the affairs of the Republic by the
+new Emperor were, however, soon disappointed.
+Maximus not only left the murder of his predecessor
+unavenged: he even seemed ostentatiously to court
+the society of the murderers, thus definitely enrolling
+himself as a partisan of the family of Aetius and an
+antagonist of the probably still numerous adherents
+of the Theodosian house. He carried this partisanship
+to such lengths as to suggest to the minds of
+his subjects that he had himself been privy to the
+death of his predecessor. The suspicion was
+probably unfounded, but the mere fact that it was
+widely entertained must have been fatal to the moral
+ascendency of the new Emperor. Moreover he compelled
+the beautiful widow of Valentinian, who was
+still truly mourning her unworthy husband, to accept
+his hand in marriage, and proposed to marry his son
+Palladius to her daughter, Placidia. If he hoped
+thus to consolidate his dynasty by a double union
+with the family of his predecessor, he was bitterly disappointed.
+Eudoxia was wounded in her affections
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>by the indecent haste with which she had been compelled
+to accept this elderly and commonplace civil
+servant instead of the brilliant, if worthless, husband
+of her youth. She was wounded in her pride by a
+marriage, or rather by two marriages, deemed by
+her to be beneath the dignity of that great Theodosian
+house to which she belonged by a double title, and
+which had now for three quarters of a century been,
+in the flattering dialect of the Court, ‘domus divina.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Eudoxia invokes the aid of Gaiseric.</i></div>
+
+<p>Like her sister-in-law Honoria, in her rage and
+despair she looked to the barbarian for aid. She
+found means to send a messenger to Gaiseric, inviting
+him to attack Rome and deliver her from
+shameful bondage. The messenger found the Vandal
+king in no unwilling mood. Most likely he had
+often discussed with himself the probabilities of
+success or failure in the most brilliant enterprise
+that ambition and avarice could suggest to a Teutonic
+warrior: and now all doubts were removed by the
+knowledge that Rome’s powers of resistance, feeble
+at the best, would be paralysed by internal dissensions.
+His ships were no doubt all equipped in
+readiness for his usual spring-tour of desolation: he
+had but to give to the waiting pilot the word of
+command, ‘for Rome.’</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Gaiseric sets sail for Rome, June, 455.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Flight and death of Maximus.</i></div>
+
+<p>The Vandal fleet reached the mouth of the Tiber
+in the early days of June (455); but already, three
+days before their arrival, the reign of Maximus,
+which lasted only about ten or eleven weeks, had
+come to an end. The rumour of the impending
+invasion, fears of domestic treachery, the unconcealed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>scorn and hatred of Eudoxia, quite unnerved the
+elderly Emperor, who, after publishing a proclamation
+granting liberty to leave the City to all who desired
+to do so, himself claimed the permission which he
+had accorded to his subjects and stole away from the
+palace. As soon as his departure was discovered
+an insurrection broke out. The servants of the
+palace, who were all on Eudoxia’s side, followed and
+overtook the fugitive. According to the ghastly
+precedent set in the case of Rufinus, they tore him
+limb from limb, dragged the pieces of his body
+through the streets of Rome and hurled them contemptuously
+into the Tiber. Already, in the general
+ruin of society, the men who called themselves
+Romans were showing themselves even more barbarous
+than the barbarians.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Surrender of the City.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>455. Plunder of Rome.</i></div>
+
+<p>A city thus left without a ruler, and probably
+divided against itself, (the enemies and the friends of
+the late Theodosian dynasty regarding one another
+with hatred and fear,) could offer no effectual resistance,
+and appears to have offered no resistance at
+all, to the mighty Vandal. Once more the expedient
+of Papal intercession was resorted to, but this time
+with only partial success. When Pope Leo with his
+clergy met Gaiseric outside the Porta Portuensis the
+conqueror agreed—no doubt on condition that his
+entry should be unopposed—to spare the lives of the
+inhabitants, to set fire neither to church, palace, nor
+private dwelling, and to abstain from the use of
+torture for the discovery of hidden wealth. These
+conditions being observed, there was to be no limit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>to the Vandal capacities for spoliation. ‘For fourteen
+days,’ says an annalist&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>&#x2060;, ‘with secure and
+unhindered investigation, Rome was stripped of all
+her wealth.’ Temple and Christian church were
+impartially plundered. Half of the gilded roof of
+the Temple of Capitolian Jove, the Communion-plate
+of all the great basilicas, statues from forum and
+hippodrome and villa, the crown and jewelled
+ornaments of Theodosius and his posterity, even the
+seven-branched candlestick and the table of the
+shew-bread which Titus had brought from ruined
+Jerusalem, these and endless other treasures were
+borne during those fourteen days of leisurely spoliation
+along the Via Portuensis and stowed away in the
+capacious holds of the Vandal galleys&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a>&#x2060;. The vessel
+which bore the statues and other treasures of art
+most unfortunately foundered on the voyage. The
+spoils of the Jewish temple reached their destination
+in safety, and after reposing in the recesses of the
+Vandal palace at Carthage for seventy-nine years
+were carried to Constantinople to grace the triumph
+of Belisarius: but the Roman Emperor Justinian,
+fearing that these sacred treasures which had already
+witnessed the sack of three great cities, Jerusalem,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>Rome, and Carthage, bringing ill fortune with them
+like the Ark of God to the cities of the Philistines,
+might also witness the fall of Constantinople, sent
+them back to their original home on Mount Moriah,
+where apparently they must still have been stored
+up when Omar, at the head of his true believers,
+stormed the Holy City.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Gaiseric returns to Africa.</i></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Captivity of Eudoxia and her daughters.</i></div>
+
+<p>Gaiseric, having fully accomplished his purpose,
+not conquest but plunder, returned to Carthage,
+laying waste on his way the shores of Campania and
+ruining the cities of Capua and Nola. The Empress
+Eudoxia and her two daughters were transported to
+Carthage. The elder daughter, Eudoxia, was married
+to Gaiseric’s eldest son, Huneric,—a most miserable
+union, since she was a devoted Catholic and her
+husband a bitter Arian. In 472, after twenty-seven
+years of wedlock, she escaped from the hated land to
+Jerusalem, and there died, after a few months spent
+in religious seclusion, at the Tomb of the Saviour.
+The Empress Eudoxia and her other daughter,
+Placidia, were sent to Constantinople in 462, after
+seven years’ captivity, in consideration of a large
+ransom paid by the Emperor Leo, who, though
+no relation of the Theodosian family, felt his dignity
+wounded by the detention of the widow and daughter
+of an Emperor in the palace of the barbarian.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Further fortunes of the Theodosian family.</i></div>
+
+<p>Placidia’s husband, a senator named Olybrius, was
+one of the ‘shadow-Emperors’ whose coming and
+going marked the last twenty years of the Empire
+of the West. In March, 472, he was proclaimed
+Augustus by Ricimer, the successor of Stilicho and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>Aetius in the position of ‘powerful friend’ of the
+Emperors. In October of the same year he died of
+dropsy, having produced no perceptible eddy in the
+swift downward current of the fortunes of Rome.
+A grandson of his and Placidia’s, a great-grandson
+of Valentinian III, named also Olybrius, was Consul
+in 491. His inconspicuous name is the last vestige
+left in history of the family of the great Theodosius.</p>
+
+<p>I have overpassed the proper limits of my subject
+by a few years in order to trace the fortunes of the
+Theodosian <i>family</i>. The Theodosian <i>dynasty</i> ended,
+as we have seen, in March, 455; and that event,
+with the immediately succeeding sack of Rome by
+Gaiseric, is a fitting close to my narrative.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Conclusion.</i></div>
+
+<p>In 375, before the Huns had crossed the Dniester,
+or the fugitive Visigoths had crowded to the shore
+of the Danube, beseeching the hospitality of the Empire,
+it seemed as if the stately fabric reared by the
+Senate and People of Rome, which had already
+stood for eleven centuries, might stand for eleven
+centuries more. In 455, when the ships of the Vandal
+king were bearing away the widow and daughters
+of an Emperor, the spoils of the city and palace, and
+a crowd of well-born captives, to his robber-fortress
+of Carthage, the sceptre of the great world-conquering
+power was broken. Britain, Gaul, Germany, Spain,
+Africa, were lost to her dominion. Rome herself
+had twice surrendered to a barbarian conqueror, and
+had twice been sacked by his soldiers. The sacred
+soil of Italy had for years been trodden under foot
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>by the armies of the Goth, the Hun, and the Vandal.
+The Empire’s reputation of unconquerableness had
+departed from her, and when Roman and barbarian
+met on the battle-field, the expectation in both armies
+was that the legions would <i>not</i> be victorious. A
+long and wonderful existence yet lay before the New
+Rome by the Bosphorus, but from the Old Rome by
+the Tiber the spell of Empire had for a time departed.
+Yet already there were indications in the
+sky from what quarter her new day would dawn.
+Already the majestic figure of Leo betokened the
+uprising of a new order of men, the avowed successors
+of a fisherman of Bethsaida, who should rule
+over a wider world than the Roman Empire, and
+wield a more absolute authority than had been
+enjoyed by the proudest of the successors of Augustus.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Greece.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Regulus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> ‘I appeal unto Caesar.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Strictly speaking the Ulpii, Aelii, Antonini, and Annii. But
+Antoninus is the best central name for the dynasty.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> The city of Spalato now occupies the site of the palace of
+Diocletian, which was built in the neighbourhood of Salona.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Valens.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Cod. Theod. xii. 1, 160. It is Arcadius who uses this expression.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Vegetius (De Re Militari ii. 5).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> ‘Nam imperator cum Augusti nomen accepit, tanquam praesenti
+et corporali Deo fidelis est praestanda devotio, inpendendus
+pervigil famulatus.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> The Computation proceeds in this way. The <i>Notitia</i> enumerates
+132 ‘Legions’ of foot soldiers and 109 other bodies of infantry,
+‘Numeri,’ ‘Auxilia,’ and so forth, whose precise strength we cannot
+ascertain: also 91 ‘Vexillationes,’ ‘Alae,’ &amp;c., of cavalry.</p>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Taking the 132 Legions at 6100 men we get</td>
+    <td class="tdpg">805,200</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Taking the 109 Numeri, &amp;c. at 1000 we get</td>
+    <td class="tdpg">109,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Taking the 91 Vexillationes at 600 (the full number of
+     a Vexillatio) we get</td>
+    <td class="tdpg">54,600</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg total">968,800</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> There is an interesting passage in the Greek historian Agathias
+(who wrote about 570) which illustrates, if it does not precisely
+confirm the view here taken. He says (Hist. v. 13): ‘The armies
+of the Romans no longer remained of the size at which they had
+been originally fixed by the earlier Emperors, but had dwindled
+down to a tiny remnant, by no means adequate to the size of the
+State. For whereas they ought to amount in the whole to 645,000
+warlike men, they have been now reduced to little more than
+150,000.’ As Agathias wrote under Justinian, after the greater
+part of the West had been lost to the Empire, he probably reduced
+his figures of ‘paper-strength’ and ‘effectives’ in proportion
+to the diminution of the Empire; and if so, he would probably have
+accepted for the year 400, when the territories of the sons of
+Theodosius were still intact, a result like that mentioned in the
+text.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Scrinia.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Claudian.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Though this word has lately obtained, chiefly through the
+influence of French writers, rather too wide currency, as the polite
+equivalent of ‘mob,’ a writer on Roman affairs may with better right
+employ it, as it is derived from the politics of old Rome. In the
+<i>Comitia Centuriata</i>, the lowest class of citizens, those who were
+assessed on a very small amount of property, and who had little
+beside their children (<i>proles</i>) wherewith to serve the State, were
+called <i>proletarii</i>. The word seems to have passed out of use
+before the close of the Republic.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> In this sentence and throughout these lectures I quote
+actual sums of money, without attempting to make any correction
+for the alteration in its value, that being an element extremely
+difficult to calculate. There is no doubt that the purchasing power
+of the equivalent of £1 sterling was greater then than now, how
+much greater it is almost impossible to say, I conjecture about
+double.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> Perhaps the ration was proportioned to the size of the receiver’s
+family, but this we cannot say with certainty.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Cassiodorus, Variarum iii. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> ‘Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam: jam vero
+et provincias. Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant, cum
+interfecit eos Nero princeps.’ Hist. Nat. xviii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Cod. Theod. ii. 25. ‘Quis enim ferat, liberos a parentibus, a
+fratribus sorores, a viris conjuges segregari?’ The date of this law
+is not quite certain, but it probably belongs to <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 334. There is
+no doubt that Constantine was the author of it, and we may therefore
+fairly attribute it to Christian influences.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> See Fustel de Coulanges, Problèmes de l’Histoire.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Waitz (Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte i. 30) remarks that
+‘Teutonic’ and ‘Deutsch’ have probably no connection with one
+another.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Norton, Sutton, Easton, Weston, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Laleham, Farnham, Tottenham, &amp;c., but more often with
+a genitive plural preceding it. Birmingham (the village of the
+Beormings), Buckingham (the village of the Bucings), and
+so on.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> Derby, Danby, Whitby, &amp;c.; Elswick, Alnwick, Chiswick, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> The <i>Ingenui</i> of the Latin writers: the <i>Gemein-freie</i> of modern
+Germans.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Faihu-thrains</i> (literally cattle-thronging) is Ulfilas’ translation
+of Μαμμωνᾶς.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> This paragraph is an attempt to explain the following passage
+of Tacitus (Germania xxvi) which has been almost as much
+fought over by commentators as if it had been a text of Scripture:—</p>
+
+<p>‘Agri pro numero cultorum ab universis in vices occupantur, quos
+mox inter se secundum dignationem partiuntur. Facilitatem partiendi
+camporum spatia praestant. Arva per annos mutant; et superest
+ager.’</p>
+
+<p>I follow in some points the interpretation given by Waitz
+(Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte i. 109-113 and 140-148), and
+Dahn (Geschichte der deutschen Urzeit i. 171-174); but on the
+whole the criticism of Fustel de Coulanges (Problèmes d’Histoire,
+263-294) seems to me to penetrate most deeply into the author’s
+meaning.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> ‘Secundum dignationem partiuntur.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> ‘Et superest ager.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> ‘Arva per annos mutant.’ Perhaps this is meant to convey a
+different meaning from ‘per annum.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> De Bello Gallico, iv. 1, vi. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> The strongest part of Mr. Seebohm’s book is, I think, his
+illustration of the old Teutonic land-tenure by the open fields now
+or lately existing at Hitchin. I confess I am not convinced by him
+that the open field system and ‘co-aration’ necessarily imply a
+servile tenure on the part of the cultivators.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> De Bello Gallico iv. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> We have a word <i>Gá</i> in English akin to the German <i>Gau</i>, but
+it does not seem to have been ever extensively used. For the
+reasons why <i>shire</i> is not precisely appropriate, see Prof. Freeman’s
+Essay ‘The Shire and the Gá.’ Have we a trace of the Gau in the
+names of Linlithgow and Glasgow?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> Bishop Stubbs makes the ‘hundred’ answer to the <i>pagus</i>, but as
+there were 65 hundreds in Sussex alone, this seems a very small division
+to represent the great and important <i>pagi</i> of Caesar and Tacitus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Compare the ‘Turba regum diversarumque nationum ductores’
+of Jordanes, De Reb. Get. xxxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> ‘Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt’ (Tacitus, Germania
+vii).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> ‘Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit’
+(ibid. xvi). It seems very likely, as suggested by Seebohm (English
+Village Community, p. 339), that this describes rather the settlement
+of the chiefs than of the commonalty. This must be stated, however,
+as a mere conjecture, as there is nothing in the language of Tacitus
+on which to found it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> The story of Clovis and the vase of Soissons, though almost
+worn threadbare by frequent repetition, may be quoted as an illustration
+of the nature of the power of a German king, strictly limited
+in peace, but tending to become absolute in war. Clovis wished to
+gratify the Bishop of Rheims by restoring to him a vase which the
+spoilers had taken from his church. When the army were all
+mustered at Soissons with the heap of plunder before them, he
+accordingly asked that this vase might be allotted to him over and
+above his regular share of the spoil. ‘Glorious king,’ said the
+loyal soldiers, ‘we and all that we have are thine, neither can any
+one resist thy power.’ But one of the warriors—‘envious and fickle,’
+says the historian, perhaps in his heart resenting the adulation of
+his comrades—lifted up his battle-axe and smote upon the vase,
+saying, ‘Nothing shalt thou carry away from hence except what
+a fair lot give thee.’ The vase was apparently defaced, not broken,
+and the king concealing his annoyance handed it to the bishop’s
+messenger. At the year’s end, when all the warriors were assembled
+in the Campus Martius to show the brightness of their arms, the
+king, going the round of his troops, came to the striker of the vase.
+‘No one,’ said he, ‘keeps his arms in such a dirty state as thou
+dost: neither thy spear, nor thy shield, nor thy battle-axe is fit to be
+seen,’ and therewith he wrested the battle-axe from his hand and
+threw it to the ground. As the man stooped to pick it up the king
+raised his hand on high, and drove his own battle-axe deep into the
+warrior’s skull, shouting, ‘Thus at Soissons didst thou do to that
+vase.’ Thereupon he ordered all the other warriors to file off from
+the field, their hearts being filled with a salutary dread of his power.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> In this connection it is interesting to note that an inscription
+has recently been discovered at the Roman Camp of Borcovicus
+in Northumberland, which commences ‘Deo Marti Thincso.’ The
+persons who thus record the dedication of their altar to the god
+Mars Thincsus are said to be ‘Germani Cives Tuihanti.’ Dr.
+Hübner, one of the greatest authorities on Roman epigraphy, believes
+that ‘Mars Thincsus’ is the Teutonic god Tiu, and that his epithet
+means that the national <i>Thing</i> or Council was held under his
+guardianship. (See Archaeologia Aeliana, x. 154-159.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> ‘Eliguntur in iisdem conciliis et principes, qui jura per pagos
+vicosque reddunt’ (Tacitus, Germania xii).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> Thiudans is the Gothic word for ‘King.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> In 552, see Jordanes li.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> Socrates, iv. 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> Gothic Irregulars.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis xxiv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> ‘Vallis Greuthungorum’ (Ammianus xxxi. 3). Greuthungi
+seems to have been another name for the Ostrogoths.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> Concord Auggg. (The number of repetitions of the letter g
+indicates the number of Emperors.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> Jordanes xxvi: ‘Illico in ducum Lupicini et Maximi armantur
+<i>occisionem</i>.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Ammianus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> Cura Palati.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> xxiii. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Onager.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> Aries.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> Helepolis.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> ‘Trans Taurum.’ I suppose this is equivalent to ‘per Orientem.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> Ammianus, ‘Efficacia Julii magistri militiae trans Taurum
+enituit salutaris et velox.’ Zosimus, Ἰούλιος τοιῷδέ τινι τρόπῳ τὸν
+ἐπηρτημένον ταῖς πόλεσιν ἀποσείεται κίνδυνον.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> Jordanes xxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Idatius, Descriptio Consulum, makes the entry of Athanaric into
+Constantinople 11 Jan. and his death 25 Jan. 381.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> ‘Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> ‘Vir strenuus et probus atque Augusto dignus, nisi contra sacramenti
+fidem per tyrannidem emersisset.’ (Historia Miscella xi. 16.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> xxxi. 10, 18 and 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> Historia Miscella xii. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Magnentius and Valentinian I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> Combined from Zosimus and Philostorgius. Possibly the two
+stories relate to different altercations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> Jordanes xxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Zosimus v. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> Claudian, De Bello Getico 565-7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Rumpe omnes, Alarice, moras. Hoc impiger anno</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Alpibus Italiae ruptis, <i>penetrabis ad Urbem</i>.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse right">Claudian, De Bello Getico, 545-6.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> Partly founded, however, on the experience of Theodoric in
+Thrace as described by Malchus. (See Italy and her Invaders,
+Book IV. cap. 3.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> ‘Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> He was Praefectus Praetorio under Attalus, 409.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> Zosimus v. 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> Or ‘your souls.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> Zosimus v. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> ‘Consanguineo,’ Jord. xxx.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> Morning-gift.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> In several points of his military career, Aetius seems to me
+a not unworthy precursor of Belisarius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> With a short interval of exile in Hunland, 433.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Jordanes xxxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> ‘Bellorum quidem amator, sed ipse manu temperans.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> Suidas.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> ‘Turba regum’ (Jordanes xxxviii). Compare the story of
+Talma playing to a <i>parquet</i> of Kings in the days of Napoleon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> ‘Bellum atrox, multiplex, immane, pertinax.’ Jordanes xl.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> Jordanes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> By Procopius, de Bello Vandal. i. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> As suggested by Papencordt, Geschichte der Vandalen, p. 339.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> Idatius. ‘Alani et Wandali et Suevi Hispanias ingressi: alii
+quarto Kalendas [28 Sept.], alii tertio Idus Octobris [13 Oct.] memorant
+die, tertiâ feriâ.’ Tillemont points out that the 28th September
+in that year fell on a Tuesday, but the 13th October on a
+Wednesday. Very likely the fifteen days’ difference between the
+two calculations denotes the interval between the passage of the van
+and the rear of the invading host.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> Often called Genseric by modern historians, but there is no doubt
+that Gaiseric is the more correct form of the name, and it is the one
+now generally adopted by German scholars.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> Procopius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Professor Freeman, in the English Historical Review for July, 1887.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> The date commonly given is 429, but there are authorities also
+for 427 and 428, and upon the whole this last date appears the
+most probable.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> Procopius asserts this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> This character is chiefly taken from Jordanes, cap. 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> Procopius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Idatius mentions this report: ‘Gaisericus qui, ut aliquorum
+relatio habet, effectus apostata de fide Catholicâ, in Arianam dictus
+est transisse perfidiam.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> Marcellinus Comes, s. a. 454.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> Or possibly Carpilio. We are not quite sure of the name.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> Or Accila and Trasila (Continuator Prosperi). Trasila is here
+said to have been a son-in-law of Aetius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> ‘Insperatis et inopinatis ictibus confoderunt.’</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> Prosper.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> We are not distinctly told that the fleet of Gaiseric lay at
+anchor off Portus, but this is rather more probable than that they
+were at Ostia. It is quite possible, however, that the fleet may have
+been divided between the two ports when it was plain that there
+was to be no opposition. This would enable the Vandals to load
+much more cargo during the fourteen days, which on any hypothesis
+seems rather a short time for the immense amount of business
+transacted in them.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>(Modern place-names in Italics.</i>)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<nav>
+<ul>
+
+<li class="ifrst">A.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ad Salices (the Willows), battle of, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aemona (<i>Laybach</i>), <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aequitius, Superintendent of the Palace, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aetius, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-210</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Agathias, <a href="#Footnote_11">40 <i>n.</i></a>, <a href="#Footnote_11">41 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Agentes in Rebus, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alamanni, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alani, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alaric, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137-168</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alatheus the Ostrogoth, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alavivus, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ambrose, St., <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ammianus Marcellinus, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Angles, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Anianus, Bishop of Paris, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Antioch, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118-120</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aquileia—besieged by Attila, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arbogast, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128-132</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arcadius, <a href="#Footnote_7">36 <i>n.</i></a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ardaburius the Alan, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ardaric, King of the Gepidae, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arian controversy, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ariminum, plains of, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aristocracy of Rome, not theoretically hereditary, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">manners of, in fourth century, <a href="#Page_47">47-48</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Armogast, Count, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Army, Roman, size of, in the fourth century, <a href="#Page_39">39-40</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aspar the Alan, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ataulfus, <a href="#Page_172">172-175</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Athanaric (Judge of the Visigoths), <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Attalus, <a href="#Page_162">162-164</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Attila, King of the Huns, <a href="#Page_180">180-203</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Augustine, St., <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Augustus, work of, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">B.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bacurius, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Baltic, the, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Barbaricum, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Barritus, the, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Batvin (Gothic martyr), <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bauto, the Frank, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bleda, King of the Huns, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bonifacius, Governor of Africa, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209-214</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bora, a fierce wind, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Botheric, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bretons, the, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Britain, invasion of by Angles and Saxons, <a href="#Page_183">183-184</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Britain, Roman roads in, <a href="#Page_2">2-4</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Brutus, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Burgundians, the, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Busentus, the, Alaric buried in, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">C.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Caesar, work of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">on the Germans, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Caesarius, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Camps, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Carthage, Vandals at, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218-220</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cassiodorus, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Castinus, Magister Militum, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cauca (in Spain, the birthplace of Theodosius), <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Celtic nationality, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>Censorship, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Châlons, battle of, so called, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">China, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Christian legislation of Constantine, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19">51 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Christianity, relation of Diocletian to, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— relation of Constantine to, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— relation of Constantine’s successors to, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chrysopolis, battle of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chrysostom, St. John, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Clarissimi, class of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Claudian, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Clovis and the vase of Soissons, <a href="#Footnote_39">69 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coinage, Imperial, of 1st and 3rd centuries contrasted, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coloni, condition of, <a href="#Page_51">51-52</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Comes Privatarum Rerum, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Sacrarum Largitionum, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Consistory, Imperial, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Constantine the Great, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19">51 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— the Usurper, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Constantinople, foundation of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">siege of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Constantius I, <a href="#Page_24">24-25</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— husband of Placidia, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— secretary to Attila, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Crispus, son of Constantine, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Crocus, king of the Alamanni, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Curiales, <a href="#Page_52">52-53</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">D.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dahn, F., <a href="#Footnote_27">60 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Damasus, Pope, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Decurio, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Diocletian, his work of restoration, <a href="#Page_21">21-25</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">his relation to Christianity, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">E.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">East, Prefecture of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Edeco the Hun, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ellebichus, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Emperor, Roman, appearance of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">titles of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ernak, son of Attila, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Eucherius, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Eudoxia, wife of Arcadius, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— wife of Valentinian III, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— daughter of Valentinian III, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">married to Huneric, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Eugenius, Emperor, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Eutropius, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Extortion of Roman Governors, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">F.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fiesole, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Firmus, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Flaccilla, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Flavianus, Bishop of Antioch, <a href="#Page_118">118-120</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Food supply of Roman citizens, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Franks, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Frederic (Gothic martyr), <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Freeman, E. A., <a href="#Footnote_34">65 <i>n.</i></a>, <a href="#Footnote_91">210 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Frigidus, battle of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fritigern, Visigothic chieftain, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">G.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gainas the Goth, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gaiseric, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209-234</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Galerius, colleague of Diocletian, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Galla, wife of Theodosius, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Galla Placidia (see <a href="#Placidia">Placidia</a>).</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Games of the circus, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gau (= pagus), <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gaudentius, father of Aetius, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— son of Aetius, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gauls, prefecture of the, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gelimer, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Geougen, the, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gepidae, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Germania of Tacitus, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">German kingship, <a href="#Page_67">67-72</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— popular assemblies, <a href="#Page_70">70-72</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Germans, condition of, <a href="#Page_54">54-72</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gerontius, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>Godigisclus, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">‘Gothic Architecture,’ <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Gothic Christianity, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">Gothic language, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Goths, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>. See <a href="#Visigoths">Visigoths</a>, <a href="#Ostrogoths">Ostrogoths</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gratian, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_123">123-125</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Greuthungi (= Ostrogoths?), <a href="#Footnote_47">86 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gunderic, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gunthamund, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">H.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hadrianople, battle of (323), <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— — (378), <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Helena, mother of Constantine, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Heraclian, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Heraclius the Eunuch, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hermanric, King of the Ostrogoths, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Heruli, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hilderic, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hippo, siege of, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hispalis (<i>Seville</i>) taken by Vandals, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Honoria, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Honorius, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152-157</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-164</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Huneric, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Huns, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">description of, by Jordanes, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">ethnological character of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">enter Europe (374), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">I.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ildico, wife of Attila, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Illustres, class of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Illyricum, Prefecture of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ingenuus, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Italy, Prefecture of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">J.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jerome, St., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Joannes, Emperor, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jordanes (Gothic historian, wrote cir. 550), <a href="#Page_81">81-83</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jovian, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jovius, Praetorian prefect, <a href="#Page_161">161-162</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">‘Judges’ of the Visigoths, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Julian ‘the Apostate,’ <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Julius, master of the soldiery, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Justina, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jutes, the, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">K.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kingship and national unity, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">L.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lampadius, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lancearii, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Land—settlement of the Germans, <a href="#Page_60">60-62</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Latifundia, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Leo I, Pope, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Leo, Emperor, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Libanius, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Licinius, his struggle with Constantine, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lupicinus, Count of Thrace, <a href="#Page_88">88-93</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lupus, St., Bishop of Troyes, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">M.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Magister Militiae, <a href="#Page_39">39-40</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Magister Officiorum, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marcian, Emperor, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marcianople (<i>Shumla</i>), <a href="#Page_92">92-93</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marcomanni, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maria, wife of Honorius, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mattiarii, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maxentius, Emperor, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maximian, Emperor, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maximin Daza, Emperor, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— ambassador to Attila, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maximus (a wealthy citizen of Rome), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maximus, Duke of Moesia, <a href="#Page_88">88-93</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Magnus Clemens, usurper, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>Maximus, Emperor, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Milan</i> (Mediolanum), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Money, purchasing power of, <a href="#Footnote_15">46 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">N.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Nicaea, Council of, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Nicomedia in Bithynia, <a href="#Page_24">24-25</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Nicopolis, city of, owned by Paula, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Notitia Utriusque Imperii, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Footnote_10">40 <i>n.</i></a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">O.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Oath taken by soldiers to Emperor, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Offices, sale of, under the Empire, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Official hierarchy of the Empire, <a href="#Page_37">37-44</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Olybrius, ‘Shadow-Emperor,’ <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Olympius, <a href="#Page_155">155-157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Onegesius the Hun, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Optila, henchman of Aetius, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Orleans, siege of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Orosius, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Ostrogoths">Ostrogoths, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">P.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pagus, German, <a href="#Page_65">65-66</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Paris, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Paula, piety and wealth of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Persian Empire, relation of, to Roman, <a href="#Page_6">6-7</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Placidia">Placidia, daughter of Theodosius, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174-180</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pliny, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pollentia, battle of, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Possidius, Bishop of Calama, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Praefectus Annonae, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Praetorio, office of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prefectures, the four great, <a href="#Page_22">22-3</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Priscus, ambassador to Attila, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Probus, wealth of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Procopius, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Proculus, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Proletariate, <a href="#Footnote_14">46 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Q.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Quaestor, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">R.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Radagaisus, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ravenna, Honorius at, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Richomer, Count of the Domestics, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ricimer, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roman Empire, boundaries of, <a href="#Page_1">1-7</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Romanus, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rome, sieges of, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">entered by Alaric, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">plunder of, by the Vandals, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rufinus, Praetorian Prefect, <a href="#Page_135">135-142</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">S.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Salarian Gate, Alaric enters Rome through, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sallust, palace of, burned, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sangiban, King of the Alani, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saphrax, Ostrogothic chief, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sarmatians, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sarus the Goth, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saulus the Alan, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saxons, the, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sebastian, General, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— son-in-law of Bonifacius, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Seebohm, F., <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Footnote_38">68 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Senate of Rome, <a href="#Page_7">7-9</a>;</li>
+  <li class="isub1">behaviour of Emperors to, <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Serena, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Severus, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Siege artillery, Roman, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Silentiarii, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Silvanus the Goldsmith, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Singeric, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>Sirmium, <a href="#Page_23">23-95</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— vases of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Slaves, condition of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Slavonic nationality, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Spalato</i> (near Salona), <a href="#Footnote_5">27 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spectabiles, class of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stilicho, <a href="#Page_135">135-158</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stubbs, Bishop, <a href="#Footnote_35">65 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Suevi, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Symmachus, wealth of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">T.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tacitus, Germania of, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-62</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tatianus, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, <a href="#Page_192">192-3</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Theodosius the Elder, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— the Great, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-133</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— II, son of Arcadius, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— son of Ataulfus and Placidia, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thermantia, wife of Honorius, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thessalonica, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thincsus, epithet of German Mars, <a href="#Footnote_40">70 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thing, meeting of the Folk, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thiudans (= king in Gothic), <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thorismund the Visigoth, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thrasamund, King of the Vandals, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thraustila, henchman of Aetius, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ticinum (<i>Pavia</i>), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Trajan, General-in-Chief, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tribunician power, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Trier</i> (Augusta Trevirorum), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">U.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Uldin the Hun, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">V.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Valens, Emperor, <a href="#Page_87">87-98</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Valentinian I, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— II, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125-129</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">— III, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225-7</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Valerian, Count of Imperial Stables, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vandals, the, <a href="#Page_204">204-232</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Venice, foundation of, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Victor, son of usurper Maximus, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Victor Vitensis, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Village settlements of the Germans, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Visigoths">Visigoths, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87-99</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Völker-wanderung, the, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">W.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Waitz, G., <a href="#Footnote_27">60 <i>n.</i></a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Walamir, King of the Ostrogoths, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Walia, King of the Visigoths, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wealthy Romans, fortunes of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Y.</li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>York</i> (Eboracum), <a href="#Page_25">25-26</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Z.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Zercon, the Moor, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Zosimus, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li>
+
+</ul>
+</nav>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE END.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp94" id="map1" style="max-width: 75.0em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map1.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p class="p1">THE ROMAN EMPIRE<br> in the time of Valentinian I.<br>
+    A.D. 364-375</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp94" id="map2" style="max-width: 75.0em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map2.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p class="p1">EUROPE<br>IN THE YEAR 451</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center larger"><i>Italy and her Invaders.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illustrated with Plates and Maps.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">Vols. I-IV, A.D. 376-553.</p>
+
+<p class="center">8<i>vo.</i> 3<i>l.</i> 8<i>s.</i></p>
+
+</main>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78826 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+[Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook [#78826](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78826)