Eleven years later (451) Attila invaded Gaul, but this Hunnish
movement was in a variety of ways different from those of the
Attila and the Huns.
Visigoths and Vandals. Nearly a century had passed
since the Huns first appeared in Europe, and drove the
Goths to seek shelter within the Roman lines. Attila
was now the ruler of a great empire in central and northern
Europe and, in addition to his own Huns, the German tribes
along the Rhine and Danube and far away to the north owned
him as king. He confronted the Roman power as an equal; and,
unlike the Gothic and Vandal chieftains, he treated with the
emperors of east and west as an independent sovereign. His
advance on Gaul and Italy threatened, not the establishment
of one more barbaric chieftain on Roman soil, but the subjugation
of the civilized and Christian West to the rule of a
heathen and semi-barbarous conqueror. But the Visigoths
in Gaul, Christian and already half Romanized, rallied to the
Battle of Châlons.
aid of the empire against a common foe. Attila,
defeated at Châlons[1] by Aëtius, withdrew into Pannonia
(451). In the next year he overran Lombardy, but
penetrated no farther south, and in 453 he died. With the
murder of Valentinian III. (455) the western branch of the
house of Theodosius came to an end, and the next twenty
years witnessed the accession and deposition of nine
emperors.
Under the three-months' rule of Maximus, the Vandals under
Gaiseric invaded Italy and sacked Rome. From 456-72 the actual
Sack of Rome by the Vandals. Ricimer supreme in Italy. Orestes, the Pannonian.
ruler of Italy was Ricimer, the Suebe. Of the four
emperors whom he placed on the throne, Majorian
(457-61) alone played any imperial part outside
Italy.[2] Ricimer died in 472, and two years later a
Pannonian, Orestes, attempted to fill his place. He
deposed Julius Nepos and proclaimed as Augustus
his own son Romulus. But the barbarian mercenaries
in Italy determined to secure for themselves a position
there such as that which their kinsfolk had won in
Gaul and Spain and Africa. Their demand for a third
of the lands of Italy was refused by Orestes,[3] and they instantly
rose in revolt. On the defeat and death of Orestes they proclaimed
their leader, Odoacer the Rugian,[4] king of Italy.
Romulus Augustulus. King Odoacer.
Romulus Augustulus laid down his imperial dignity, and
the court at Constantinople was informed that there
was no longer an emperor of the West.[5]
The installation of a barbarian king in Italy was the
natural climax of the changes which had been taking place
in the West throughout the 5th century. In Spain,
Gaul and Africa barbarian chieftains were already
established as kings. In Italy, for the last twenty
years, the real power had been wielded by a barbarian officer.
Odoacer, when he decided to dispense with the nominal authority
of an emperor of the West, placed Italy on the same level of
independence with the neighbouring provinces. But the old
ties with Rome were not severed. The new king of Italy
formally recognized the supremacy of the one Roman emperor
at Constantinople, and was invested in return with the rank of
“patrician,” which had been held before him by Aëtius and
Ricimer. In Italy too, as in Spain and Gaul, the laws, the
administrative system and the language remained
Roman.[6]
But the emancipation of Italy and the Western provinces from
direct imperial control, which is signalized by Odoacer's accession,
has rightly been regarded as marking the opening of a new
epoch. It made possible in the West the development of a
Romano-German civilization; it facilitated the growth of
new and distinct states and nationalities; it gave a new impulse
to the influence of the Christian church, and laid the foundations
of the power of the bishops of Rome.
Chronological Table of the Roman Emperors
B.C.
27. Augustus.
A.D.
14. Tiberius.
37. Gaius.
41. Claudius.
54. Nero.
68, 69.
Galba.
Otho.
Vitellius.
69. Vespasian.
79. Titus.
81. Domitian.
96. Nerva.
98. Trajan.
117. Hadrian.
138. Antoninus Pius.
161. Marcus Aurelius.
180. Commodus.
193.
Pertinax.
Didius Julianus.
Septimius Severus.
211. Caracalla.
217. Macrinus.
218. Elagabalus.
222. Alexander Severus.
235. Maximinus.
238.
The two Gordiani.
Pupienus and Balbinus.
Gordian III.
244. Philip.
249. Decius.
251. Gallus.
253. Aemilianus.
260.
Valerian.
Gallienus.
268. Claudius.
270.
Quintillus.
Aurelian.
275. Tacitus.
276. Probus.
282. Carus.
283. Carinus and Numerian.
284. Diocletian (Maximian associated with him, 286).
Authorities.—I. Republican Period: Ancient Sources.—The
writing of history, like other branches of literature, was a late
growth amongst the Romans, and it is very difficult to determine
how far authentic records were preserved of the earlier republican
period. It seems that the calendars issued yearly by the pontifices
and posted on the walls of the Regia were inscribed with brief
notices of important events (“digna memoratu . . . domi militiaeque
terra marique gesta per singulos dies,” Serv. Ad Aen. i. 373);
these tabulae were preserved and edited in 80 books by P. Mucius
Scaevola (pontifex maximus, 130-?114 B.C.) under the name of
Annales Maximi. The Commentarii preserved in the archives of
the various priestly colleges and official boards (e.g. consuls and
censors), which appear to have consisted mainly of instructions
as to official procedure, doubtless furnished historical material in
the shape of precedents and decisions. It is hard to say how much
of this documentary evidence survived the burning of Rome by
the Gauls; the fact that the earliest solar eclipse mentioned in the
Annales Maximi was that of the 5th of June, 351 B.C., casts doubt
on the completeness of the earlier records.
Many modern scholars have supposed that these meagre official
records were supplemented by—(a) popular poetry, more or less
legendary in content; (b) family chronicles, the substance of
which was worked up into the funeral orations (laudationes funebres)
pronounced at the grave of distinguished Romans. The existence
of the former class of documents is, however, quite unsupported
by evidence; as to family tradition, we cannot say more than
that it has probably left a deposit in the accounts of republican
history handed down to us, and caused the exploits of the members
of illustrious houses to be exaggerated in importance.
Setting aside the works of Greek historians who incidentally
touched on Roman affairs, such as Hieronymus of Cardia, who
wrote of the wars of Pyrrhus as a contemporary, and Timaeus of
Tauromenium (c. 345-250 B.C.), who treated of the history of Sicily
and the West down to 272 B.C., the earliest writers on Roman history
↑For the battle of Châlons, see Gibbon iv. 464; Hodgkin ii. 124
n. 6, 143, where the topography is discussed.
↑Majorian was the last Roman emperor who appeared in person in
Spain and Gaul.
