The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization Part 32

[Sidenote: New hordes of barbarians.]

[Sidenote: Devastation of Gaul.]

Yet scarcely was Italy delivered from the Goths, before an irruption of Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, under Rodogast or Rhadagast, two hundred thousand in number of fighting men, beside an equal number of women and children, issued from the coast of the Baltic. One third of these crossed the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines, ravaged the cities of Northern Italy, and laid siege to Florence, which was reduced to its last necessity, when the victor of Pollentia appeared beneath its walls, with the _last_ army which the empire could furnish, and introduced supplies. Moreover, he surrounded the enemy in turn with strong intrenchments, and the barbaric host was obliged to yield. The leader Rodogast was beheaded, and the captives were sold as slaves. Stilicho, a second time, had delivered Italy; but one hundred thousand barbarians still remained in arms between the Alps and the Apennines. Shut out of Italy, they invaded Gaul, and never afterward retreated beyond the Alps.

Gaul was then one of the most cultivated of the Roman provinces; the banks of the Rhine were covered with farms and villas, and peace and plenty had long accustomed the people to luxury and ease. But all was suddenly changed, and changed for generations. The rich corn-fields and fruitful vineyards became a desert. Mentz was destroyed and burned.

Worms fell after an obstinate siege, and experienced the same fate.

Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, pa.s.sed under the German yoke, and the flames of war spread over the seventeen provinces of Gaul. The country was completely devastated, and all cla.s.ses experienced a remorseless rigor. Bishops, senators, and virgins were alike enslaved. No retreat was respected, and no s.e.x or condition was spared. Gaul ceased to exist as a Roman province.

[Sidenote: a.s.sa.s.sination of Stilicho.]

Italy, however, had been for a time delivered, and by the only man of ability who remained in the service of the emperor. He might possibly have checked the further progress of the Goths, had the weak emperor intrusted himself to his guidance. But imperial jealousy, and the voice of faction, removed forever this last hope of Rome. The frivolous Senate which he had saved, and the timid emperor whom he had guarded, were alike demented. The savior of Italy was an object of fear and hatred, and the a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger, which cut short his days, inflicted a fatal and suicidal blow upon Rome herself.

[Sidenote: Alaric ravages Italy.]

[Sidenote: Rome without defenders.]

The Gothic king, in his distant camp on the confines of Italy, beheld with undissembled joy, the intrigues and factions which deprived the emperor of his best defender, and which placed over his last army incompetent generals. So, hastening his preparations, he again descends like an avalanche upon the plains of Italy. Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, yielded to his arms, and increased his forces.

He then ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic; and, following the Flaminian way, crossed the pa.s.ses of the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains of Umbria, and reached without obstruction the city which for six hundred years had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. But Rome was not what she was when Hannibal led his Africans to her gates. She was surrounded with more extensive fortifications, indeed, and contained within her walls, which were twenty-one miles in circuit, a large population. But where were her one hundred and fifty thousand warriors?

Where were even the three armies drawn out in battle array, that had confronted the Carthaginian leader? She could boast of senators who traced their lineage to the Scipios and the Gracchi; she could enumerate one thousand seven hundred and eighty palaces, the residence of wealthy and proud families, many of which were equal to a town, including within their precincts, markets, hippodromes, temples, fountains, baths, porticoes, groves, and aviaries; she could tell of senatorial incomes of four thousand pounds of gold, about eight hundred thousand dollars yearly, without computing the corn, oil, and wine, which were equal to three hundred thousand dollars more--men so rich that they could afford to spend five hundred thousand dollars in a popular festival, and this at a time when gold was worth at least eight times more than its present value; she could point with pride to her Christian saints, one of whom, the ill.u.s.trious Paula, the friend of St. Jerome, was the sole proprietor of the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded to commemorate his victory over Antony; she could count two millions of inhabitants, crowded in narrow streets, and four hundred thousand pleasure-seekers who sought daily the circus or the theatre, and three thousand public female dancers, and three thousand singers who sought to beguile the hours of the lazy rabble who were fed at the public expense, and who, for a small copper coin, could wash their dirty bodies in the marble baths of Diocletian and Caracalla; but where were her defenders--where were her legions?

[Sidenote: Alaric beseiges Rome.]

[Sidenote: Disgraceful terms of peace.]

The day of retribution had come, and there was no escape. Alaric made no efforts to storm the city, but quietly sat down and inclosed the wretched citizens with a cordon through which nothing could force its way. He cut off all communications with the country, intercepted the navigation of the Tiber, and commanded the twelve gates. The city, unprovided for a siege, and never dreaming of such a calamity, soon felt all the evils of famine, to which those of pestilence were added. The most repugnant food was eagerly devoured, and even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their murdered children. Thousands perished daily in the houses, and the public sepulchres infected the air. Despair at last seized the haughty citizens, and they begged the clemency of the Gothic king. He derided the amba.s.sadors who were sent to treat, and insulted them with rude jests. At last he condescended to spare the lives of the people, on condition that they gave up _all_ their gold and silver, _all_ their precious movables, and _all_ their slaves of barbaric birth. More moderate terms were afterward granted; but the victor did not retreat until he had loaded his wagons with more wealth and more liberated captives than the Romans had brought from both Carthage and Antioch. He retired to the fertile fields of Tuscany to make negotiations with Honorius; and it was only on condition that he were appointed master-general of the armies of the emperor, with an annual subsidy of corn and money, and the free possession of the provinces of Dalmatia, Noric.u.m, and Venetia, for the seat of his kingdom, that he would grant peace to the emperor, who had entrenched himself at Ravenna. These terms were disregarded, and once more Alaric turned his face to Rome. He took possession of Ostia, one of the most stupendous works of Roman magnificence, and the port of Rome secured, the city was once again at his mercy. Again the Senate, fearful of famine and impelled by the populace, consented to the demands of the conqueror. He nominated Atticus, prefect of the city, emperor instead of the son of Theodosius, and received from him the commission of master- general of the armies of the West.

[Sidenote: Alaric takes Rome.]

[Sidenote: The miseries of the Romans.]

The new emperor had a few days of prosperity, and the greater part of Italy submitted to his rule, backed by the Gothic forces. But he was after all a mere puppet in the hands of Alaric, who used him as a tool, and threw him aside when it suited his purposes. Atticus, after a brief reign, was degraded, and renewed negotiations took place between Alaric and Honorius. The emperor, having had a temporary relief, broke finally with the barbarians, who held Italy at their mercy, and Alaric, vindictive and indignant, once again set out for Rome, now resolved on plunder and revenge. In vain did the n.o.bles organize a defense.

Cowardice and treachery opened the Salarian gate. No Horatius kept the bridge. No Scipio arose in the last extremity. In the dead of night the Gothic trumpet rang unanswered in the streets. The Queen of the World, the Eternal City, was the prey of savage soldiers. For five days and nights she was exposed to every barbarity and license. Only the treasures collected in the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul were saved. Although the captor had promised to spare the lives of the people, a cruel slaughter was made, and the streets were filled with the dead. Forty thousand slaves were let loose by the b.l.o.o.d.y conquerors to gratify their long-stifled pa.s.sions of l.u.s.t and revenge. The matrons and virgins of Rome were--exposed to every indignity, and suffered every insult. The city was abandoned to pillage, and the palaces were stripped even or their costly furniture. Sideboards of ma.s.sive silver, and variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were piled upon the wagons. The works of art were destroyed or injured. Beautiful vases were melted down for the plate. The daughters and wives of senatorial families became slaves--such as were unable to purchase their ransom. Italian fugitives thronged the sh.o.r.es of Africa and Syria, begging daily bread. They were scattered over various provinces, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem. The whole empire was filled with consternation. The news made the tongue of old St. Jerome to cleave to the roof of his mouth in his cell at Bethlehem, which even was besieged with beggars. "For twenty years," cried he, "Roman blood has been flowing from Constantinople to the Julian Alps. Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dacia, Epirus, Dalmatia, Achaia, the two Pannonias," yea, he might have added, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Italy, "all belong to the barbarians. Sorrow, misery, desolation, despair, death, are everywhere. What is to be seen but one universal s.h.i.+pwreck of humanity, from which there is no escape save on the plank of penitence." The same bitter despair came from St.

Augustine. The end of the world was supposed to be at hand, and the great churchmen of the age found consolation only in the doctrine that the second coming of our Lord was at hand to establish a new dispensation of peace and righteousness on the earth, or to appear as a stern and final judge amid the clouds of heaven.

[Sidenote: The Goths in Italy.]

After six days the Goths evacuated the city they had despoiled, and advanced along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying ruthlessly all who opposed their march, and loading themselves with still greater spoils. The corn, wine, and oil of the country were consumed within the barbarian camp, and the beautiful villas of the coast of Campania were destroyed or plundered. The rude inhabitants of Scythia and Germany stretched their limbs under the shade of the Italian palm-trees, and compelled the beautiful daughters of the proud senators of the fallen capital to attend on them like slaves, while they quaffed the old Falernian wines from goblets of gold and gems. Nothing arrested the career of the Goths. Their victorious leader now meditated the invasion of Africa, but died suddenly after a short illness, and the world was relieved, for a while, of a mighty fear.

[Sidenote: Ravages in other provinces.]

His successor Adolphus suspended the operations of war, and negotiated with the emperor a treaty of peace, and even enlisted under his standard to chastise his enemies in Gaul. But the oppressed provincials were cruelly ravaged by their pretended friends, who occupied the cities of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and spread from the Mediterranean to the Ocean. Adolphus espoused Placidia, a sister of Honorius, to the intense humiliation of the ministers of Honorius. But the marriage proved fortunate for the empire, and the Goths settled down in the fertile provinces they had conquered, and established a Gothic kingdom.

Among the treasures which the Goths carried to Narbonne, was a famous dish of solid gold, weighing five hundred pounds, ornamented with precious stones, and exquisitely engraved with the figures of men and animals. But this precious specimen of Roman luxury was not to be compared with the table formed from a single emerald, encircled with three rows of pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet of gems and ma.s.sive gold, which was found in the Gothic treasury when plundered by the Arabs, and which also had been one of the ornaments of a senatorial palace. [Footnote: This emerald table was probably colored gla.s.s. It was valued at five hundred thousand pieces of gold.] The favor of the Franks was, in after times, purchased with this golden dish by a Spanish monarch, who stole it back, but compensated by a present of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, with which Dagobert founded the Abbey of St. Denys. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. x.x.x.]

[Sidenote: New barbaric invasions.]

[Sidenote: Permanent settlements of the Goths in Spain.]

The sack of Rome by the Goths was followed by the successful inroads of other barbaric tribes. The Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals invaded Spain, which for four hundred years had been prosperous in all the arts of peace. The great cities of Corduba, Merida, Seville, Bracara, and Barcelona, testified to her wealth and luxury, while science and commerce both elevated and enfeebled the people. Yet no one of the Roman provinces suffered more severely. Gibbon thus quotes the language of a Spanish historian. "The barbarians exercised an indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of both Spaniards and Romans, and ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open country. Famine reduced the miserable inhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures, and pestilence swept away a large portion of those whom famine spared. Then the barbarians fixed their permanent seats in the country they had ravaged with fire and sword; Galicia was divided between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were scattered over the provinces of Carthagenia and Lusitania, and Botica was allotted to the Vandals." But he adds, and this is a most impressive fact, "that the greater part of the Spaniards preferred the condition of poverty and barbarism to the severe oppressions of the Roman government." [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. x.x.x.]

The successors of Alaric, A.D. 419, established themselves at Toulouse, forty-three years after they had crossed the Danube, which became the seat of the Gothic empire in Gaul. About the same time the Burgundians and the Franks obtained a permanent settlement in that distracted but wealthy province, and effected a ruin of all that had been deemed opulent or fortunate.

[Sidenote: The Romans leave Britain.]

Meanwhile, Britain had been left, by the withdrawal of the legions, to the ravages of Saxon pirates, and the savages of Caledonia. The island was irrevocably lost to the empire, A.D. 409, although it was forty years before the Saxons obtained a permanent footing, and secured their conquest.

But a more savage chastis.e.m.e.nt than Rome received from the Goths--the most powerful and generous of her foes--was inflicted by the Vandals, whose name is synonymous with all that is fierce and revolting.

[Sidenote: The Vandals.]

These barbarians belonged to the great Teutonic race, although some maintain that they were of Slavonic origin. Their settlements were between the Elbe and the Vistula; and, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, they had, with other tribes, invaded the Roman world, but were defeated by the Roman emperor. One hundred years later they settled in Pannonia, where they had a bitter contest with the Goths. Defeated by them, they sought the protection of Rome, and enlisted in the imperial armies. In 406, they crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul, and it was not in the power of the Franks to resist them. They advanced to the very foot of the Pyrenees, inflicting every atrocity upon the Celtic and Roman inhabitants. Neither age, nor s.e.x, nor condition was spared, and the very churches were given to the flames. They then crossed into Spain, A.D. 409, and settled in Andalusia, and under its sunny skies resumed the agricultural life they had led in Pannonia. [Footnote: Sheppard's _Fall of Rome_, p. 364.] The land now wore an aspect of prosperity; rich harvests covered the plains, while the hills were white with flocks. They seem to have lived in amity with the Romans, so that "there were found those who preferred freedom with poverty among the barbarians, to a life rendered wretched by taxation among their own countrymen." [Footnote: Orosious, vii. 41.] This testimony is confirmed by Salvian, who declares, "they prefer to live as freemen under the guise of captivity, rather than as captives under the guise of freedom."

[Footnote: _De Gub. Dei_, v.] If this be true, it would seem that the rule of the barbarians was preferred to the taxation and oppression with which they were ground down by the Roman officials. And this conclusion is legitimate, when we remember the indifference and apathy that seized the old inhabitants when the empire was seriously threatened. It may have been that the irruptions of the barbarians were not regarded as so great a calamity after all, if they should break the bondage and alleviate the misery which filled the Roman world.

[Sidenote: Success of the Vandals.]

The Roman government, it would seem, [Footnote: Sheppard, p. 364.] would not tolerate the Vandals in Spain, and intrigued with the Goths, their hereditary enemies, to make an attack upon them, perhaps with the view of weakening the strength of the Goths themselves, A.D. 416. Wallia, king of the Goths, was successful, and the Vandals were worried. The Romans also sent an army to reconquer Spain from their grasp, which drove the Vandals into Andalusia. But the Vandals turned upon their enemies and entirely discomfited them, and twenty thousand men were left dead upon the field. Spain was now entirely at the mercy of these infuriated barbarians, who might have peacefully settled had it not been for the jealousy of the imperial government, which, in those days, drew upon itself evils by its own mismanagement. For two years "Vandalism"

reigned throughout the peninsula, which was pillaged and sacked.

[Sidenote: Genseric.]

The king of these Vandals was Genseric, the worthy rival of Alaric and Attila, as a "scourge of G.o.d." If we may credit the writers who belonged to the people whom he humbled, [Footnote: Procopious, _Bell.

Vand._, i. 3.] he was one of the most hideous monsters ever clothed with power. He was ambitious, subtle, deceitful, revengeful, cruel, and pa.s.sionate. But he was temperate, of clear vision, and inflexible purpose.

[Sidenote: The Vandals Threaten Africa.]

He cast his eyes on Africa, the granary of Rome, and the only province which had thus far escaped the ravages of war. In the hour of triumph, and in the plenitude of power, he resolved on leaving Spain, which he held by uncertain tenure, since he was only an illegitimate son of the late monarch Gunderic, and founding a new kingdom in Africa. It was rich in farms and cities, whose capital, Carthage, had arisen from her ashes, and was once again the rival of Rome in majesty and splendor. She had even outgrown Alexandria, and her commerce was more flouris.h.i.+ng than that of the capital of Egypt. She was even famous for schools and chairs of philosophy; but more for those arts which material prosperity ever produces.

[Sidenote: Dissensionsof Roman generals.]

There were, at that time, two distinguished generals in the service of the empire--Boniface and Aetius, the former of whom was governor of Africa. They were, unfortunately, rivals, and their dissensions and jealousies compromised the empire. United, they could have withstood, perhaps, the torrent which was about to sweep over Africa and Italy.

Aetius persuaded the emperor to recall Boniface, while he advised the Count to disobey the summons, representing it as a sentence of death.

Boniface put himself in the att.i.tude of a rebel, and fearing the imperial forces, invited Genseric and his Vandals to Africa, with the proposal of an alliance and an advantageous settlement. Doubtless he was driven to this grand folly by the intrigues of Aetius.

Genseric gladly availed himself of an invitation which held out to him the richest prize in the empire. With fifty thousand warriors he landed on the coast of Africa, formed an alliance with the Moors, and became as dangerous an ally to Count Boniface, as Lord Clive was to the native princes of India. Africa was then disturbed by the schism of the Donatists, and these fanatical people were taken under the _protection_ of the Vandals. The Moors always hated their Roman masters. With Vandals, Moors, and Donatists, leagued together, Africa was in serious danger.

[Sidenote: The Vandals invade Africa.]

The landing of the Vandals, who, of all barbarians, bore the most terrible name, was the signal of head-long flight. Consternation seized all cla.s.ses of people. The gorges and the caverns of Mount Atlas were crowded with fugitives. The Vandals burned the villages through which they marched, and sacked the cities, and destroyed the harvests, and cut down the trees. The Moors swelled the ranks of the invaders, and indulged their common hatred of civilization and of Rome. Boniface, too late, perceived his mistake, and turned against the common foe; but was defeated in battle, and forced to cede away three important provinces as the price of peace, A.D. 432. But peace was not of long duration. The Vandals continually encroached upon more valuable territory. Moreover, they had been nominally converted to Christianity, and were bitter zealots of the Arian faith, and most relentlessly persecuted the Catholic Christians who adhered to the Nicene Creed.

[Sidenote: Genseric at Carthage.]

[Sidenote: Fate of the city.]

At last (439 A.D.), the storm burst out, and the world was thunderstruck with the intelligence that Genseric had seized and plundered Carthage.

Suddenly, without warning, in a day looked not for, this magnificent city was plundered, and her inhabitants butchered by the most faithless and perfidious barbarians, who trampled out the dying glories of the empire. Her doom was like that p.r.o.nounced upon Tyre and Sidon. The bitter cry which went up from the devastated city proclaimed the retribution of G.o.d for sins more hideous than those of Antioch or Babylon. Of all the cities of the world, Carthage was probably the wickedest--a seething caldron of impurities and abominations, the home of all the vices which disgraced humanity--so indecent and scandalous as to excite the disgust of the barbarians themselves. According to one of the authors of those times, as quoted by Sheppard, [Footnote: Salvian, _De Gub. Dei_, vii. 251.] "they were notorious for drunkenness, avarice, and perjury--the peculiar sins of degenerate commercial capitals. The Goths are perfidious but chaste, the Franks are liars but hospitable, the Saxons are cruel but continent; but the Africans are a blazing fire of impurity and l.u.s.t; the rich are drunk with debauchery, the poor are ground down with relentless oppression, while other vices, too indecent to be named, pollute every cla.s.s. Who can wonder at the fall of Roman society? What hope can there be for Rome, when barbarians are more chaste and temperate than they?"

In the sack of Carthage, the voluminous writings of Augustine, then breathing his last in prayer to G.o.d that the fate of Sodom might be averted, were fortunately preserved, and have doubtless done more to instruct, and perhaps civilize, the western nations, than all the arts and sciences of the commercial metropolis. It is singular how little remains of the commercial cities of antiquity, which we value as trophies of civilization. A few sculptured ruins are all that attest ancient pride and glory. The poems of a blind schoolmaster at Chios, and the rhapsodies of a wandering philosopher on the hills of Greece, have proved greater legacies to the world than the combined treasures of Africa and Asia Minor. Where is the literature of Carthage, except as preserved in the writings of Augustine, the influence of which in developing the character of the barbarians cannot be estimated.

[Sidenote: Renewed dangers of Rome.]