A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXX.
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST; BEGINNING OF THE GREAT GERMAN MIGRATION.
(A.D. 180–476.)
Reign of Commodus ((A.D. 180–192).—Under the wise and able administration of "the five good emperors "—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines—the Roman empire reached its culmination in power and prosperity; and now, under the enfeebling influences of vice and corruption within, and the heavy blows of the barbarians without, it begins to decline rapidly to its fall.
Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, and the last of the Antonines, was a most unworthy successor of his illustrious father. For three years, however, surrounded by the able generals and wise counsellors that the prudent administration of the preceding emperors had drawn to the head of affairs, Commodus ruled with fairness and lenity, when an unsuccessful conspiracy against his life seemed suddenly to kindle all the slumbering passions of a Nero. He secured the favor of the rabble with the shows of the amphitheatre, and purchased the support of the prætorians with bribes and flatteries. Thus he was enabled for ten years to retain the throne, while perpetrating all manner of cruelties, and staining the imperial purple with the most detestable debaucheries and crimes.
Commodus had a passion for gladiatorial combats, and attired in a lion's skin, and armed with the club of Hercules, he valiantly set upon and slew antagonists arrayed to represent mythological monsters, and armed with great sponges for rocks. The Senate, so obsequiously servile had that body become, conferred upon him the title of the Roman Hercules, and also voted him the additional surnames of Pius and Felix, and even proposed to change the name of Rome and call it Colonia Commodiana.
The empire was finally relieved of the insane tyrant by some members of the royal household, who anticipated his designs against themselves by putting him to death.
"The Barrack Emperors."—For nearly a century after the death of Commodus (from (A.D. 192 to 284), the emperors were elected by the army, and hence the rulers for this period have been called "the Barrack Emperors." The character of the period is revealed by the fact that of the twenty-five emperors who mounted the throne during this time all except four came to their deaths by violence. "Civil war, pestilence, bankruptcy, were all brooding over the empire. The soldiers had forgotten how to fight, the rulers how to govern." On every side the barbarians were breaking into the empire to rob, to murder, and to burn.
The Public Sale of the Empire ((A.D. 193).—The beginning of these troublous times was marked by a shameful proceeding on the part of the prætorians. Upon the death of Commodus, Pertinax, a distinguished senator, was placed on the throne; but his efforts to enforce discipline among the prætorians aroused their anger, and he was slain by them after a short reign of only three months. These soldiers then gave out notice that they would sell the empire to the highest bidder. It was, accordingly, set up for sale at the prætorian camp, and struck off to Didius Julianus, a thy senator, who gave $1000 to each of the 12,000 soldiers at this time composing the guard. So the price of the empire was about $12,000,000.
But these turbulent and insolent soldiers at the capital of the empire were not to have things entirely their own way. As soon as the news of the disgraceful transaction reached the legions on the frontiers, they rose as a single man in indignant revolt. Each of the three armies that held the Euphrates, the Rhine, and the Danube, proclaimed its favorite commander emperor. The leader of the Danubian troops was Septimius Severus, a man of great energy and force of character. He knew that there were other competitors for the throne, and that the prize would be his who first seized it. Instantly he set his veterans in motion and was soon at Rome. The prætorians were no match for the trained legionaries of the frontiers, and did not even attempt to defend their emperor, who was taken prisoner and put to death after a reign of sixty-five days.
Reign of Septimius Severus ((A.D. 193–211).—One of the first acts of Severus was to organize a new body-guard of 50,000 legionaries, to take the place of the unworthy prætorians, whom, as a punishment for the insult they had offered to the Roman state, he disbanded, and banished from the capital, and forbade to approach within a hundred miles of its walls. He next crushed his two rival competitors, and was then undisputed master of the empire. He put to death forty senators for having favored his late rivals, and completely destroyed the power of their body. Committing to the prefect of the new praetorian guard the management of affairs at the capital, Severus passed the greater part of his long and prosperous reign upon the frontiers. At one time he was chastising the Parthians beyond the Euphrates, and at another, pushing back the Caledonian tribes from the Hadrian wall in the opposite corner of his dominions. Finally, in Britain, in his camp at York, death overtook him.
Reign of Caracalla ((A.D. 211–217).—Severus conferred the empire upon his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. Caracalla murdered his brother, and then ordered Papinian, the celebrated jurist, to make a public argument in vindication of the fratricide. When that great lawyer refused, saying that "it was easier to commit such a crime than to justify it," he put him to death. Thousands fell victims to his senseless rage. Driven by remorse and fear, he fled from the capital, and wandered about the most distant provinces. At Alexandria, on account of some uncomplimentary remarks by the citizens upon his appearance, he ordered a general massacre. Finally, after a reign of six years, the monster was slain in a remote corner of Syria.
Reign of Alexander Severus ((A.D. 222–235).—Severus restored the virtues of the Age of the Antonines. His administration was pure and energetic; but he strove in vain to resist the corrupt and downward tendencies of the times. He was assassinated, after a reign of fourteen years, by his seditious soldiers, who were angered by his efforts to reduce them to discipline. They invested with the imperial purple an obscure officer named Maximin, a Thracian peasant, whose sole recommendation for this dignity was his gigantic stature and his great strength of limbs. Rome had now sunk to the lowest possible degradation. We may pass rapidly over the next fifty years of the empire.
The Thirty Tyrants (A.D. 251–268).—Maximin was followed swiftly by Gordian, Philip, and Decius, and then came what is
called the "Age of the Thirty Tyrants." The imperial sceptre being held by weak emperors, there sprang up in every part of the empire, competitors for the throne—several rivals frequently appearing in the field at the same time. The barbarians pressed upon all the frontiers, and thrust themselves into all the provinces. The empire seemed on the point of falling to pieces.[1] But a fortunate succession of five good emperors—Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus (A.D. 268–284)—restored for a time the ancient boundaries, and again forced together into some sort of union the fragments of the shattered state.
The Fall of Palmyra.—The most noted of the usurpers of authority in the provinces during the period of anarchy of which we have spoken, was Odenatus, Prince of Palmyra, a city occupying an oasis in the midst of the Syrian Desert, midway between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. In gratitude for the aid he had rendered the Romans against the Parthians, the Senate had bestowed upon him titles and honors. When the empire began to show signs of weakness and approaching dissolution, Odenatus conceived the ambitious project of erecting upon its ruins in the East a great Palmyrian kingdom. Upon his death, his wife, Zenobia, succeeded to his authority and to his ambitions. This famous princess claimed descent from Cleopatra, and it is certain that in the charms of personal beauty she was the rival of the Egyptian queen. Boldly assuming the title of " Queen of the East," she bade defiance to the emperor of Rome. Aurelian marched against her, defeated her armies, and carried her a captive to Italy (273 B.C.). After having been led in golden chains in the triumphal procession of Aurelian, the queen was given a beautiful villa in the vicinity of Tibur, where, surrounded by her children, she passed the remainder of her checkered life.
The ruins of Palmyra are among the most interesting remains of Græco-Roman civilization in the East. Reign of Diocletian (A.D. 284–305).—The reign of Diocletian marks an important era in Roman history. Up to this time the imperial government had been more or less carefully concealed under the forms and names of the old republic. The government now became an unveiled and absolute monarchy. Diocletian's reforms, though radical, were salutary, and infused such fresh vitality into the frame of the dying state as to give it a new lease of life for another term of nearly two hundred years.
He determined to divide the numerous and increasing cares of the distracted eimpire, so that it might be ruled from two centres— one in the East and the other in the West. In pursuance of this plan, he chose as a colleague a companion soldier, Maximian, upon whom he conferred the title of Augustus.
The most serious drawback to the system of government thus instituted was the heavy expense incident to the maintenance of four courts with their trains of officers and dependants. The taxes became unendurable, husbandry ceased, and large masses of the population were reduced almost to starvation.
While the changes made in the government have rendered the name of Diocletian famous in the political history of the Roman state, the cruel persecutions which he ordered against the Christians have made his name in an equal degree infamous in ecclesiastical annals; for it was during this reign that the tenth—the last and severest—of the persecutions of the Church took place. By an imperial decree the churches of the Christians were ordered to be torn down, and they themselves were outlawed. For ten years the fugitives were hunted in forest and cave. The victims were burned, were cast to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre—were put to death by every torture and in every mode that ingenious cruelty could devise. But nothing could shake the constancy of their faith. They courted the death that seemed them, as they firmly believed, immediate entrance upon an existence of unending happiness. The exhibition of devotion and constancy shown by the martyrs won multitudes to the persecuted faith.
(From the Catacombs.)
It was during this and the various other persecutions that vexed the Church in the second and third centuries that the Christians sought refuge in the Catacombs, those vast subterranean galleries and chambers under the city of Rome. Here the Christians lived and buried their dead, and on the walls of the chambers sketched rude symbols of their hope and faith. It was in the darkness of these subterranean abodes that Christian art had its beginnings.
After a prosperous reign of twenty years, becoming weary of the cares of state, Diocletian abdicated the throne, and forced or induced his colleague Maximian also to lay down his authority on the same day. Galerius and Constantius were, by this act, advanced to the purple and made Augusti; and two new associates appointed as Cæsars. Diocletian, having enjoyed the extreme satisfaction of seeing the imperial authority quietly and successfully transmitted by his system, without the dictation of the insolent prætorians or the interference of the turbulent legionaries, now retired to his country seat at Salona, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and there devoted himself to rural pursuits. It is related that, when Maximian wrote him urging him to endeavor, with him, to regain the power they had laid aside, he replied: " Were you but to come to Salona and see the vegetables which I raise in my garden with my own hands, you would no longer talk to me of empire."
Reign of Constantine the Great (A.D. 306–337) ; the Empire becomes Christian.—Galerius and Constantius had reigned together only one year, when the latter died at York, in Britain; and his soldiers, disregarding the rule of succession as determined by the system of Diocletian, proclaimed his son Constantine emperor. Six competitors for the throne arose in different quarters. For eighteen years Constantine fought to gain supremacy. At the end of that time every rival was crushed, and he was the sole ruler of the Roman world.
Constantine was the first Christian emperor. He was converted to the new religion—such is the legend—by seeing in the heavens, during one of his campaigns against his rivals, a luminous cross with this inscription: "With this sign you will conquer." He made the cross the royal standard; and the Roman legions now for the first time marched beneath the emblem of Christianity.
By a decree issued from Milan A.D. 313, Christianity was made in effect the state religion; but all other forms of worship were tolerated. With the view of harmonizing the different sects that had sprung up among the Christians, and to settle the controversy between the Arians and the Athanasians respecting the nature of Christ,—the former denied his equality with God the Father,—Constantine called the first Œcumenical, or General Council of the Church, at Nicæa, a town of Asia Minor, A.D. 325. Arianism was denounced, and a formula of Christian faith adopted, which is known as the Nicene Creed.
After the recognition of Christianity, the most important act of Constantine was the selection of Byzantium, on the Bosporus, as the new capital of the empire. One reason which led the emperor to choose this site in preference to Rome was the ungracious conduct towards him of the inhabitants of the latter city, because he had abandoned the worship of the old national deities. 
But there were political reasons for such a change. Through the Eastern conquests of Rome, the centre of the population, wealth, and culture of the empire had shifted eastward. The West—Gaol, Britain, Spain—was rude and barbarous; the East—Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor—was the abode of ancient civilizations from which Rome was proud to trace her origin. Constantine was not the first to entertain the idea of seeking in the East a new centre for the Roman world. The Italians were inflamed against the first Cjesar by the report that he intended to restore Ilium, the cradle of the Roman race, and make that the capital of the empire.
Constantine organized at Byzantium a new Senate, while that at Rome sank to the obscure position of the council of a provincial municipality. Multitudes eagerly thronged to the new capital, and almost in a night the little colony grew into an imperial city. In honor of the emperor its name was changed to Constantinople, the "City of Constantine." Hereafter the eyes of the world were directed towards the Bosporus instead of the Tiber.
To aid in the administration of the government, Constantine laid out the empire into four great divisions, called prefectures (see map), which were subdivided into thirteen dioceses, and these again into one hundred and sixteen provinces,
The character of Constantine has been greatly eulogized by Christian writers, while pagan historians very naturally painted it in dark colors. It is probable that he embraced Christianity, not entirely from conviction, but partly from political motives. As the historian Hodgkin puts it, " He was half convinced of the truth of Christianity, and wholly convinced of the policy of embracing it." In any event, Constantine's religion was a strange mixture of the old and the new faith: on his medals the Christian cross is held by the pagan deity, Victory. In his domestic relations he was tyrannical and cruel. He died in the thirty-first year of his reign, leaving his kingdom to his three sons, Constans, Constantius, and Constantine.
Reign of Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361–363).—The parcelling out of the empire by Constantine among his sons led to strife and wars, which, at the end of sixteen years, left Constantius master of the whole. He reigned as sole emperor for about eight years, engaged in ceaseless warfare with German tribes in the West and with the Persians[2] in the East. Constantius was followed by his cousin Julian, who was killed while in pursuit of thetroops of Sapor, king of the Persians A.D. 363).
Julian is called the Apostate because he abandoned Christianity and labored to restore the pagan faith. In his persecution of the Christians, however, he could not resort to the old means—"the sword, the fire, the lions;" for, under the softening influences of the very faith he sought to extirpate, the Roman world had already learned a gentleness and humanity that rendered impossible the renewal of the Neronian and Diocletian persecutions. Julian's weapons were sophistry and ridicule, in the use of which he was a master. To degrade the Christians, and place them at a disadvantage in controversy, he excluded them from the schools of logic and rhetoric.
Furthermore, to cast discredit upon the predictions of the Scriptures, Julian determined to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, which the Christians contended could not be restored because of the prophecies against it. He actually began excavations, but his workmen were driven in great panic from the spot by terrific explosions and bursts of flame. The Christians regarded the occurrence as miraculous; and Julian himself, it is certain, was so dismayed by it that he desisted from the undertaking.[3]
It was in vain that the apostate emperor labored to uproot the new faith; for the purity of its teachings, the universal and eternal character of its moral precepts, had given it a name to live. Equally in vain were his efforts to restore the worship of the old Grecian and Roman divinities. Polytheism was a transitional form of religious belief which the world had now outgrown: Great Pan was dead.
The disabilities under which Julian had placed the Christians were removed by his successor Jovian (A.D. 363–4), and the Christian worship was re-established.
Valentinian and Valens.—Upon the death of Jovian, Valentinian, the commander of the imperial guard, was elected emperor by a council of the generals of the army and the ministers of the court. He appointed his brother Valens as his associate in office, and assigned to him the Eastern provinces, while reserving for himself the Western. He set up his own court at Milan, while his brother established his residence at Constantinople.
The Movements of the Barbarians.—The reigns of Valentinian and Valens were signalized by threatening movements of the barbarian tribes, that now, almost at the same moment, began to press with redoubled energy against all the harriers of the empire. The Alemanni (Germans) crossed the Rhine—sometime! swarming over the river on the winter's Ice—and, before pursuit could be made, escaped with their booty into the depths of the German forests. The Saxons, pirates of the northern seas, who issued from the mouth of the Elbe, ravaged the Coasts of Gaul and Britain, even pushing their light skiffs far up the riven and creeks of those countries, and carrying spoils from the inland cities. In Britain, the Rets broke through the Wall of Antoninus, and wrested almost the entire island from the hands of the Romans. In Africa, the Moorish and other tribes, issuing from the ravines of the Atlas Mountains and swarming from the deserts of the south, threatened to obliterate the last trace of Roman civilization occupying the narrow belt of fertile territory skirting the sea.
The barbarian tide of invasion seemed thus on the point of overwhelming the empire in the West; but for twelve years Valentmian defended with signal ability and energy, not only his own territories, but aided with arms and counsel his weaker brother Valens in the defence of his. Upon the death of Valentmian, his son Gratian succeeded to his authority (A.D. 375).
The Goths cross the Danube.—The year following the death of Valentinian, an event of the greatest Importance occurred in the East. The Visigoths (Western Goths) dwelling north of the Rower Danube, who had often in hostile bands crossed that river to war against the Roman emperors, now appeared as suppliants in vast multitudes upon its banks. They said that a terrible race whom they were powerless to withstand, had invaded their territories, and Spared neither their homes nor their lives. They begged permission of the Romans to cross the river and settle in Thrace, and promised, should this request be granted, ever to remain the grateful and firm allies of the Roman state.
Valens consented to grant their petition on condition that they should surrender their arms, give up their children as hostages and all be baptized in the Christian faith. Their terror and despair led them to assent to these conditions. So the entire nation, numbering one million souls,—counting men, women, and children,—were allowed to cross the river. Several days and nights were consumed in the transport of the vast multitudes. The writers of the times liken the passage to that of the Hellespont by the hosts of Xerxes.
The enemy that had so terrified the Goths were the Hints, at monstrous race of fierce nomadic horsemen, that two centuries and more before the Christian era were roving the deserts north of the Great Wall of China (see p. 13). Migrating from that region, they moved slowly to the west, across the great plains of Central Asia, and, after wandering several centuries, appeared in Europe. They belonged to a different race (the Turnnian) from all the other European tribes with which we have been so far concerned. Their features were hideous, their noses being flattened, and their cheeks gashed, to render their appearance more frightful, as well as to prevent. the growth of a beard. liven the barbarous Goths called them "barbarians."
Seareer had the fugitive Visigoths been received within the limits of the empire before a large company of their kinsmen, the Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths), also driven from their homes by the same terrible I inns, crowded to the banks of the Danube, and pleaded that they might be allowed, as their countrymen had been, to [three the river between themselves and their dreaded enemies. But Valens, becoming alarmed at the presence of so many barbarians within his dominions, refused their request; whereupon they, dreading the fence and implacable foe behind more than the wrath of the Roman emperor in front, crossed the river with arms in their hands. At this moment the Visigoths,rising in revolt, joined their kinsmen that were just now forming the passage of the Danube, and began to ravage the Danubian provinces. Valens despatched swift messengers to Gratian in the West, asking for assistance against the foe be had so intprudently admitted within the limits of the empire.
Theodosius the Great (A.D. 379–395).—Gratian was hurrying to the help of his colleague Valens, when news of his defeat and death at the hands of the barbarians was brought to him, and he at once appointed as his associate Theodosius, known afterwards as the Great, and entrusted him with the government of the Eastern provinces. Theodosius, by wise and vigorous measures, quickly reduced the Goths to submission. Vast multitudes of the Visigoths were settled upon the waste lands of Thrace, while the Ostrogoths were scattered in various colonies in different regions of Asia Minor. The Goths became allies of the Emperor of the East, and more than 40,000 of these warlike barbarians, who were destined to be the subverters of the empire, were enlisted in the imperial legions.
While Theodosius was thus composing the East, the West, through the jealous rivalries of different competitors for the control of the government, had fallen into great disorder. Theodosius twice interposed to right affairs, and then took the government into his own hands. For four months he ruled as sole monarch of the empire.
Final Division of the Empire (A.D. 395).—The Roman world was now united for the last time under a single master. Just before his death, Theodosius divided the empire between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, assigning the former, who was only eighteen years of age, the government of the East, and giving the latter, a mere child of eleven, the sovereignty of the West. This was the final partition of the Roman empire—the issue of that growing tendency, which we have observed in its immoderately extended dominions, to break apart. The separate histories of the East and the West now begin.
The Eastern Empire.—The story of the fortunes of the Empire in the East need not detain us long at this point of our history. This monarchy lasted over a thousand years—from the accession to power of Arcadius, A.D. 395, to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, A.D. 1453. It will thus be seen that the greater part of its history belongs to the mediæval period. Up to the time of the overthrow of the Empire in the West, the sovereigns of the East were engaged almost incessantly in suppressing uprisings of their Gothic allies or mercenaries, or in repelling invasions of the Huns and the Vandals. Frequently during this period, in order to save their own territories, the Eastern emperors, by dishonorable inducements, persuaded the barbarians to direct their ravaging expeditions against the provinces of the West.
Last Days of the Empire in the West.
First Invasion of Italy by Alaric.—Only a few years had elapsed after the death of the great Theodosius, before the barbarians were trooping in vast hordes through all the regions of the West. First, from Thrace and Mœsia came the Visigoths, led by the great Alaric. They poured through the Pass of Thermopylæ, and devastated almost the entire peninsula of Greece; but, being driven from that country by Stilicho, the renowned Vandal general of Honorius, they crossed the Julian Alps, and spread terror throughout all Italy. Stilicho followed the barbarians cautiously, and, attacking them at a favorable moment, inflicted a terrible and double defeat upon them at Pollentia and Verona (A.D. 402–403). The captured camp was found filled with the spoils of Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta. Gathering the remnants of his shattered army, Alaric forced his way with difficulty through the defiles of the Alps, and escaped.
Last Triumph at Rome (A.D. 404).—A terrible danger had been averted. All Italy burst forth in expressions of gratitude and joy. The days of the Cimbri and Teutones were recalled, and the name of Stilicho was pronounced with that of Marius. A magnificent triumph at Rome celebrated the victory and the deliverance. It was the last triumph that Rome ever saw. Three hundred times—such is asserted to be the number—the Imperial City had witnessed the triumphal procession of her victorious generals, celebrating conquests in all quarters of the world.
Last Gladiatorial Combat of the Amphitheatre.—The same year that marks the last military triumph at Rome also signalizes the last gladiatorial combat in the Roman amphitheatre. It is to Christianity that the credit of the suppression of the inhuman exhibitions of the amphitheatre is entirely, or almost entirely, due. The pagan philosophers usually regarded them with indifference, often with favor. Thus Pliny commends a friend for giving a gladiatorial entertainment at the funeral of his wife. And when the pagan moralists did condemn the spectacles, it was rather for other reasons than that they regarded them as inhuman and absolutely contrary to the rules of ethics. They were defended on the ground that they fostered a martial spirit among the people and inured the soldier to the sights of the battle-field. Hence gladiatorial games were actually exhibited to the legions before they set out on their campaigns. Indeed, all classes appear to have viewed the matter in much the same light, and with exactly the same absence of moral disapprobation, that we ourselves regard the slaughter of animals for food.
But the Christian fathers denounced the combats as absolutely immoral, and labored in every possible way to create a public opinion against them. The members of their own body who attended the spectacles were excommunicated. At length, in A.D. 325, the first imperial edict against them was issued by Constantine. This decree appears to have been very little regarded; nevertheless, from this time forward the exhibitions were under something of a ban, until their final abolition was brought about by an incident of the games that closed the triumph of Honorius. In the midst of the exhibition a Christian monk, named Telemachus, descending into the arena, rushed between the combatants, but was instantly killed by a shower of missiles thrown by the people, who were angered by this interruption of their sports. But the people soon repented of their act; and Honorius himself, who was present, was moved by the scene. Christianity had awakened the conscience and touched the heart of Rome. The martyrdom of the monk led to an imperial edict "which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the amphitheatre."
Invasion of Italy by Various German Tribes.—While Italy was celebrating her triumph over the Goths, another and more formidable invasion was preparing in the North. The tribes beyond the Rhine—the Vandals, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and other peoples—driven onward by some unknown cause, poured in impetuous streams from the forests and morasses of Germany, and bursting the barriers of the Alps, overspread the devoted plains of Italy. The alarm caused by them among the Italians was even greater than that inspired by the Gothic invasion; for Alaric was a Christian, while Radagaisus, the leader of the new hordes, was a superstitious savage, who paid worship to gods that required the bloody sacrifice of captive enemies.
By such efforts as Rome put forth in the younger and more vigorous days of the republic, when Hannibal was at her gates, an army was now equipped and placed under the command of Stilicho. Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced as far as Florence, and were now besieging that place. Stilicho here surrounded the vast host—variously estimated from 200,000 to 400,000 men—and starved them into a surrender. Their chief, Radagaisus, was put to death, and great multitudes of the barbarians that the sword and famine had spared were sold as slaves (A.D. 406).
The Ransom of Rome (A.D.409).—Shortly after the victory of Stilicho over the German barbarians, he came under the suspicion of the weak and jealous Honorius, and was executed. Thus fell the great general whose sword and counsel had twice saved Rome from the barbarians, and who might again have averted similar dangers that were now at hand. Listening to the rash counsels of his unworthy advisers, Honorius provoked to revolt the 30,000 Gothic mercenaries in the Roman legions by a massacre of their wives and children, who were held as hostages in the different cities of Italy. The Goths beyond the Alps joined with their kinsmen to avenge the perfidious act. Alaric again crossed the mountains, and pillaging the cities in his way, led his hosts to the very gates of Rome. Not since the time of the dread Hannibal (see p. 263) —more than six hundred years before—had Rome been insulted by the presence of a foreign foe beneath her walls.
The barbarians laying siege to the city, famine soon forced the Romans to sue for terms of surrender. The ambassadors of the Senate, when they came before Alaric, began, in lofty language, to warn him not to render the Romans desperate by hard or dishonorable terms: their fury when driven to despair, they represented, was terrible, and their number enormous. "The thicker the grass, the easier to mow it," was Alaric's derisive reply. The barbarian chieftain at length named the ransom that he would accept, and spare the city. Small as it comparatively was, the Romans were able to raise it only by the most extraordinary measures. The images of the gods were stripped of their ornaments of gold and precious stones, and even the statues themselves were melted down.
Sack of Rome by Alaric (A.D. 410).—Upon retiring from Rome, Alaric established his camp in Etruria. Here he was joined by great numbers of fugitive slaves, and by fresh accessions of barbarians from beyond the Alps. The Gallic king now demanded for his followers lands of Honorius, but the emperor treated all the proposals of the barbarian with foolish insolence. Rome paid the penalty. Alaric turned upon the devoted city, determined upon its sack and plunder. The barbarians broke into the capital by night, "and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet." Precisely eight hundred years had passed since its sack by the Gauls. During that time the Imperial City had carried its victorious standards over three continents, and had gathered within the temples of its gods and the palaces of its nobles the plunder of the world. Now it was given over for a spoil to the fierce tribes from beyond the Danube.
Alaric commanded his soldiers to respect the lives of the people, and to leave untouched the treasures of the Christian temples; but the wealth of the citizens he encouraged them to make their own. For six days and nights the rough barbarians trooped through the streets of the city on their mission of pillage. Their wagons were heaped with the costly furniture, the rich plate, and the silken garments stripped from the palaces of the wealthy patricians and the temples of the gods. Amidst the license of the sack, the barbarian instincts of the robbers broke loose from all restraint, and the city was everywhere wet with blood, while the nights were lighted with burning buildings.
Effects of the Disaster upon Paganism.—The overwhelming disaster that had befallen the Imperial City produced a profound impression upon both Pagans and Christians throughout the Roman world. The former asserted that these unutterable calamities had fallen upon the Roman state because of the abandonment by the people of the worship of the gods of their forefathers, under whose protection and favor Rome had become the mistress of the world. The Christians, on the other hand, saw in the fall of the Eternal City the fulfilment of the prophecies against the Babylon of the Apocalypse. The latter interpretation of the appalling calamity gained credit amidst the panic and despair of the times. The temples of the once popular deities were deserted by their worshippers, who had lost faith in gods that could neither save themselves nor protect their shrines from spoliation. "Henceforth," says Merivale, "the power of paganism was entirely broken, and the indications which occasionally meet us of its continued existence are rare and trifling. Christianity stepped into its deserted inheritance. The Christians occupied the temples, transforming them into churches."
The Death of Alaric.—After withdrawing his warriors from Rome, Alaric led them southward. As they moved slowly on, they piled still higher the wagons of their long trains with the rich spoils of the cities and villas of Campania and other districts of Southern Italy. In the villas of the Roman nobles the rough barbarians spread rare banquets from the stores of their well-filled cellars, and drank from jewelled cups the famed Falernian wine.
Alaric led his soldiers to the extreme southern point of Italy, intending to cross the Straits of Messina into Sicily, and, after subduing that island, to carry his conquests into the provinces of Africa. His designs were frustrated by his death, which occurred A.D. 412. With religious care his followers secured the body of their hero against violation by his enemies. The little river Busentinus, in Northern Bruttium, was turned from its course with great labor, and in the bed of the stream was constructed a tomb, in which was placed the body of the king, with his jewels and trophies. The river was then restored to its old channel, and, that the exact spot might never be known, the prisoners who had been forced to do the work were all put to death.
The Barbarians Seize the Western Provinces.—We must now turn our eyes from Rome and Italy to observe the movement of events in the provinces. In his efforts to defend Italy, Stilicho had withdrawn the last legion from Britain, and had drained the camps and fortresses of Gaul. The Wall of Antoninus was left unmanned; the passages of the Rhine were left unguarded; and the agitated multitudes of barbarians beyond these defences were free to pour their innumerable hosts into all the fair provinces of the empire. Hordes of Suevi, Alani, Vandals, and Burgundians overspread all the plains and valleys of Gaul. The Vandals pushed on into the south of Spain, and there occupied a large tract of country, which, in its present name of Andalusia, preserves the memory of its barbarian settlers. From these regions they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, overran the Roman provinces of Northern Africa, captured Carthage (A.D. 439), and made that city the seat of the dread empire of the Vandals. The Goths, with Italy pillaged, recrossed the Alps, and establishing their camps in the south of Gaul and the north of Spain, set up in those regions what is known as the Kingdom of the Visigoths.
In Britain, upon the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the Picts breaking over the Wall of Antoninus, descended upon and pillaged the cities of the South. The half-Romanized and effeminate provincials—no match for their hardy kinsmen who had never bowed their necks to the yoke of Rome—were driven to despair by the ravages of their relentless enemies, and, in their helplessness, invited to their aid the Angles and Saxons from the shores of the North Sea. These people came in their rude boats, drove back the invaders, and, being pleased with the soil and climate of the island, took possession of the country for themselves, and became the ancestors of the English people.
Invasion of the Huns: Battle of Chalons.—The barbarians that were thus overrunning and parcelling out the inheritance of the dying empire were now, in turn, pressed upon and terrified by a foe more hideous and dreadful in their eyes than were they in the sight of the peoples among whom they had thrust themselves. These were the non- Aryan Huns, of whom we have already caught a glimpse as they drove the panic-stricken Goths across the Danube. At this time their leader was Attila, whom the affrighted inhabitants of Europe called the "Scourge of God." It was declared that the grass never grew again where once the hoof of Attila's horse had trod.
Attila defeated the armies of the Eastern emperor, and exacted tribute from the court of Constantinople. Finally he turned westward, and, at the head of a host numbering, it is asserted, 700,000 warriors, crossed the Rhine into Gaul, purposing first to ravage that province, and then to traverse Italy with fire and sword, in order to destroy the last vestige of the Roman power.
The Romans and their Gothic conquerors laid aside their animosities, and made common cause against the common enemy. The Visigoths were rallied by their king, Theodoric; the Italians, the Franks, the Burgundians, flocked to the standard of the Roman general Aetius. Attila drew up his mighty hosts upon the plain of Chalons, in the north of Gaul, and there awaited the onset of the Romans and their allies. The conflict was long and terrible. Theodoric was slain; but at last fortune turned against the barbarians. The loss of the Huns is variously estimated at from 100,000 to 300,000 warriors. Attila succeeded in escaping from the field, and retreated with his shattered hosts across the Rhine (A.D. 451.)
This great victory is placed among the significant events of history; for it decided that the Christian Germanic races, and not the pagan Scythic Huns, should inherit the dominions of the expiring Roman Empire, and control the destinies of Europe.
The Death of Attila.—The year after his defeat at Chalons, Attila again crossed the Alps, and burned or plundered all the important cities of Northern Italy. The Veneti fled for safety to the morasses at the head of the Adriatic (A.D. 452). Upon the islets where they built their rude dwellings, there grew up in time the city of Venice, the "eldest daughter of the Roman Empire," the "Carthage of the Middle Ages."
The conqueror threatened Rome; but Leo the Great, bishop of the capital, went with an embassy to the camp of Attila, and pleaded for the city. He recalled to the mind of Attila the fact that death had overtaken the impious Alaric soon after he had given the Imperial City to be sacked, and warned him not to call down upon himself the like judgment of heaven. To these admonitions of the Christian bishop was added the persuasion of a golden bribe from the Emperor Valentinian; and Attila was induced to spare Southern Italy, and to lead his warriors back beyond the Alps. Shortly after he had crossed the Danube, he died suddenly in his camp. His followers gradually withdrew from Europe into the wilds of their native Scythia, or were absorbed by the peoples they had conquered.
Sack of Rome by the Vandals (A.D. 455).—Rome had been saved a visitation from the spoiler of the North, but a new destruction was about to burst upon it by way of the sea from the South. Africa sent out another enemy whose greed for plunder proved more fatal to Rome than the eternal hate of Hannibal. The kings of the Vandal Empire in Northern Africa had acquired as perfect a supremacy in the Western Mediterranean as Carthage ever enjoyed in the days of her commercial pride. Vandal corsairs swept the seas and harassed the coasts of Sicily and Italy, and even plundered the maritime towns of the Eastern provinces. In the year 455 a Vandal fleet, led by the dread Genseric, sailed up the Tiber.
Panic seized the people; for the name of Vandal was pronounced with terror throughout the world. Again the great Leo, who had once before saved his flock from the fury of an Attila, went forth to intercede in the name of Christ for the Imperial City. Genseric granted to the pious bishop the lives of the citizens, but said that the plunder of the capital belonged to his warriors. For fourteen days and nights the city was given over to the ruthless barbarians. The ships of the Vandals, which almost hid with their number the waters of the Tiber, were piled, as had been, the wagons of the Goths before them, with the rich and weighty spoils of the capital. Palaces were stripped of their ornaments and furniture, and the walls of the temples denuded of their statues and of the trophies of a hundred Roman victories. From the Capitoline sanctuary were borne off the golden candlestick and other sacred articles that Titus had stolen from the Temple at Jerusalem.
The greed of the barbarians was sated at last, and they were ready to withdraw. The Vandal fleet sailed for Carthage,[4] bearing, besides the plunder of the city, more than 30,000 of the inhabitants as slaves. Carthage, through her own barbarian conquerors, was at last avenged upon her hated rival. The mournful presentiment of Scipio had fallen true (see p. 271). The cruel fate of Carthage might have been read again in the pillaged city that the Vandals left behind them.
Fall of the Roman Empire in the West (A.D. 476).—Only the shadow of the Empire in the West now remained. All the provinces—Illyricum, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa—were in the hands of the Goths, the Vandals, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Angles and Saxons, and various other intruding tribes. Italy, as well as Rome herself, had become again and again the spoil of the insatiable barbarians. The story of the twenty years following the sack of the capital by Genseric affords only a repetition of the events we have been narrating. During these years several puppet emperors were set up by the different leaders of the invading tribes. A final seditious movement placed upon the shadowthrone a child of six years, named Romulus Augustus. Chiefly because of the imperial farce he was forced to play, this childemperor became known as Augustulus, "the little Augustus." He had reigned only a year, when Odoacer, the leader of a tribe of German mercenaries, dethroned him, and abolishing the title of emperor, took, upon himself the government of Italy.
The Roman Senate now sent an embassy to Constantinople, with the royal vestments and the insignia of the imperial office, to represent to the Emperor Zeno that the West was willing to give up its claims to an emperor of its own, and to request that the German chief, with the title of "Patrician," might rule Italy as his viceroy. This was granted; and Italy now became in effect a province of the Empire in the East (A.D. 476). The Roman Empire in the West had come to an end, after an existence from the founding of Rome of 1229 years.
| A.D. | A.D. | ||||
| Commodus | 180–192 | Diocletian | 284–305 | ||
| Pertinax | 193 | Maximian | 286–305 | ||
| Didius Julianus | 193 | Constantius | 305–306 | ||
| Septimius Severus | 193–211 | Galerius | 305–311 | ||
| Caracalla | 211–217 | Constantine the Great | 306–337 | ||
| Geta | 211–212 | Reigns as sole ruler | 323–337 | ||
| Macrinus | 217–218 | Constantine II | 337–340 | ||
| Elagabalus | 218–222 | Constans I | 337–350 | ||
| Alexander Severus | 222–235 | Constantius II | 337–361 | ||
| Maximin | 235–238 | Reigns as sole ruler | 350–361 | ||
| Gordian III | 238–244 | Julian the Apostate | 361–363 | ||
| Philip | 244–249 | Jovian | 363–364 | ||
| Decius | 249–251 | Valentinian I | 364–375 | ||
| Period of the Thirty Tyrants | 251–268 | Valens (in the East) | 364–378 | ||
| Claudius | 268–270 | Gratian | 375–383 | ||
| Aurelian | 270–275 | Maximus | 383–388 | ||
| Tacitus | 275–276 | Valentinian II | 375–392 | ||
| Probus | 276–282 | Eugenius | 392–394 | ||
| Carus | 282–283 | Theodosius the Great | 379–395 | ||
| Carinus | 283–284 | Reigns as sole emperor | 394–395 | ||
| Numerian | 283–284 | ||||
| EMPERORS IN THE EAST. (From A.D. 395 to Fall of Rome.) |
EMPERORS IN THE WEST. | ||
| A.D. | A.D | ||
| Arcadius | 395–408 | Honorius | 395–423 |
| Theodosius II | 408–450 | Valentinian II | 425–455 |
| Marcian | 450-457 | Maximus | 455 |
| Leo I | 457-474 | Avitus | 455–456 |
| Zeno | 474-491 | Count Ricimer creates and deposes emperors |
456-472 |
| Romulus Augustus | 475-476 | ||
- ↑ It was during this period that the Emperor Valerian ((A.D. 253–260), in a battle with the Persians before Edessa, in Mesopotamia, was defeated and taken prisoner by Sapor, the Persian king. A large rock tablet (see cut above), still to be seen near the Persian town of Shiraz, is believed to commemorate the triumph of Sapor over the unfortunate emperor.
- ↑ The great Parthian empire, which had been such a formidable antagonist of Rome, was, after an existence of five centuries, overthrown (A.D. 226) by a revolt of the Persians, and the New Persian, or Sassanian monarchy established. This empire lasted till the country was overrun by the Saracensin the seventh century a.d.
- ↑ The explosions which so terrified the workmen of Julian are supposed to have been caused by accumulations of gases—similar to those that so frequently occasion accidents in mines—in the subterranean chambers of the Temple foundations.
- ↑ The fleet was overtaken by a storm and suffered some damage, but the most precious of the relics it bore escaped harm. "The golden candlestick reached the African capital, was recovered a century later, and lodged in Constantinople by Justinian, and by him replaced, from superstitious motives, in Jerusalem. From that time its history is lost."—Merivale.