Revolt of the Goths —They Plunder Greece—Two Great Invasions of Italy by Alaric and Radagaisus—They Are repulsed by Stilicho—The Germans Over run Gaul—Usurpation of Constantine in the West—Disgrace and Death of Stilicho
Revolt of the Goths, A.D. 395
IF the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced how painfully the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in arms. (1) The barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard, and boldly avowed the hostile designs which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned by the conditions of the last treaty to a life of tranquillity and labour, deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet, and eagerly resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the poet to remark "that they rolled their ponderous wagons over the broad and icy back of the indignant river." (2) The unhappy natives of the provinces to the south of the Danube submitted to the calamities which, in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination; and the various troops of barbarians who gloried in the Gothic name were irregularly spread from the woody shores of Dalmatia to the walls of Constantinople. (3) The interruption, or at least the diminution, of the subsidy which the Goths had received from the prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of their revolt: the
affront was embittered by their contempt for the unwarlike
sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was inflamed by the
weakness or treachery of the minister of Arcadius. The
frequent visits of Rufinus to the camp of the barbarians,
whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were
considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty
correspondence; and the public enemy, from a motive either
of gratitude or of policy, was attentive, amidst the general
devastation, to spare the private estates of the unpopular
praefect. The Goths, instead of being impelled by the blind
and headstrong passions of their chiefs, were now directed
by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned
leader was descended from the noble race of the Balti,(4)
which yielded only to the royal dignity of the Amali: he had
solicited the command of the Roman armies; and the Imperial
court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their
refusal, and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes
might be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the
judicious general soon abandoned an impracticable
enterprise. In the midst of a divided court and a
discontented people, the emperor Arcadius was terrified by
the aspect of the Gothic arms: but the want of wisdom and
valour was supplied by the strength of the city; and the
fortifications, both of the sea and land, might securely
brave the impotent and random darts of the barbarians.
Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and
ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to
seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province
which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war.(5)
Alaric marches into Greece, A.D. 396
The character of the civil and military officers on whom
Rufinus had devolved the government of Greece confirmed the
public suspicion that he had betrayed the ancient seat of
freedom and learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul
Antiochus was the unworthy son of a respectable father; and
Gerontius; who commanded the provincial troops, was much
better qualified to execute the oppressive orders of a
tyrant than to defend, with courage and ability, a country
most remarkably fortified by the hand of nature. Alaric had
traversed, without resistance, the plains of Macedonia and
Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount Oeta, a steep and
woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry. They
stretched from east to west, to the edge of the seashore;
and left, between the precipice and the Malian Gulf, an
interval of three hundred feet, which in some places was
contracted to a road capable of admitting only a single
carriage. (6) In this narrow pass of Thermopylae, where
Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans had gloriously
devoted their lives, the Goths might have been stopped, or
destroyed, by a skilful general; and perhaps the view of
that sacred spot might have kindled some sparks of military
ardour in the breasts of the degenerate Greeks. The troops
which had been posted to defend the straits of Thermopylae
retired, as they were directed, without attempting to
disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric;(7) and the
fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly covered
by a deluge of barbarians, who massacred the males of an age
to bear arms and drove away the beautiful females, with the
spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers who
visited Greece several years after wards could easily
discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the
Goths; and Thebes was less indebted for her preservation to
the strength of her seven gates than to the eager haste of
Alaric, who advanced to occupy the city of Athens and the
important harbour of the Piraeus. The same impatience urged
him to prevent the delay and danger of a siege, by the offer
of a capitulation; and as soon as the Athenians heard the
voice of the Gothic herald, they were easily persuaded to
deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as the ransom of
the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was
ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity.
The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was
admitted within the walls; he indulged himself in the
refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid banquet which
was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that he
was not ignorant of the manners of civilised nations.(8) But
the whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium
to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence;
and, if we may use the comparison of a contemporary
philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty
skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance between Megara
and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles but the bad
road, an expressive name, which it still bears among the
Greeks, was, or might easily have been made, impassable for
the march of an enemy. The thick and gloomy woods of Mount
Cithasron covered the inland country; the Scironian rocks
approached the water's edge, and hung over the narrow and
winding path, which was confined above six miles along the
seashore.(9) The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every
age, was terminated by the isthmus of Corinth; and a small
body of firm and intrepid soldiers might have successfully
defended a temporary entrenchment of five or six miles from
the Ionian to the Aegean Sea. The confidence of the cities
of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart had tempted them to
neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice of
the Roman governors had exhausted and betrayed the unhappy
province. (10) Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without
resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate
of the inhabitants were saved by death from beholding the
slavery of their families and the conflagration of their
cities.(11) The vases and statues were distributed among the
barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials
than to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives
submitted to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was
the reward of valour; and the Greeks could not reasonably
complain of an abuse which was justified by the example of
the heroic times. (12) The descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered valour and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more formidable than Alaric.
"If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man, advance — and thou wilt find men equal to thyself." (13)
From Thermopylae to Sparta the leader of the Goths pursued his victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonists; but one of the advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently asserted that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva, with her formidable Agis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles,(14) and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles it would perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus to the common benefit, yet it cannot be dissembled that the mind of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs of Homer and the fame of Achilles had probably never reached the ear of the illiterate Barbarian; and the Christian faith, which he had devoutly embraced, taught him to despise the imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The invasion of the Goths, instead of vindicating the honours, contributed, at least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism; and the mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years, did not survive the destruction of Eleusis and the calamities of Greece.(15)
He is attacked by Stilicho, A.D. 397
The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on
their arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in
the powerful assistance of the general of the West; and
Stilicho, who had not been permitted to repulse, advanced to
chastise the invaders of Greece. (16) A numerous fleet was
equipped in the ports of Italy; and the troops, after a
short and prosperous navigation over the Ionian Sea, were
safely disembarked on the isthmus, near the ruins of
Corinth. The woody and mountainous country of Arcadia, the
fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became the scene
of a long and doubtful conflict between two generals not
unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the
Roman at length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a
considerable loss from disease and desertion, gradually
retreated to the lofty mountain of Pholoe, near the sources
of the Peneus, and on the frontiers of Elis—a sacred
country, which had formerly been exempted from the
calamities of war. (17) The camp of the barbarians was
immediately besieged; the waters of the river (18) were
diverted into another channel; and while they laboured under
the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong line
of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After
these precautions Stilicho, too confident of victory,
retired to enjoy his triumph in the theatrical games and
lascivious dances of the Greeks; his soldiers, deserting
their standards, spread themselves over the country of their
allies, which they stripped of all that had been saved from
the rapacious hands of the enemy. Alaric appears to have
seized the favourable moment to execute one of those hardy
enterprises in which the abilities of a general are
displayed with more genuine lustre than in the tumult of a
day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison of
Peloponnesus it was necessary that he should pierce the
entrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should
perform a difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as
far as the Gulf of Corinth; and that he should escapes to Epirus transport his troops, his captives, and his spoil, over an arm of the sea,
which, in the narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite
shore, is at least half a mile in breadth.(19) The operations
of Alaric must have been secret, prudent, and rapid, since
the Roman general was confounded by the intelligence that
the Goths, who had eluded his efforts, were in full
possession of the important province of Epirus. This
unfortunate delay allowed Alaric sufficient time to conclude
the treaty which he secretly negotiated with the ministers
of Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war compelled
Stilicho to retire, at the haughty mandate of his rivals;
from the dominions of Arcadius; and he respected, in the
enemy of Rome, the honourable character of the ally and
servant of the emperor of the East.
Alaric is declared master-general of Eastern Illyricum, A.D. 398,
A Grecian philosopher, (20) who visited Constantinople soon
after the death of Theodosius, published his liberal
opinions concerning the duties of kings and the state of the
Roman republic. Synesius observes and deplores the fatal
abuse which the imprudent bounty of the late emperor had
introduced into the military service. The citizens and
subjects had purchased an exemption from the indispensable
duty of defending their country, which was supported by the
arms of barbarian mercenaries. The fugitives of Scythia were
permitted to disgrace the illustrious dignities of the
empire; their ferocious youth, who disdained the salutary
restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire the riches
than to imitate the arts of a people the object of their
contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the
stone of Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and
safety of the devoted state. The measures which Synesius
recommends are the dictates of a bold and generous patriot.
He exhorts the emperor to revive the courage of his subjects
by the example of manly virtue; to banish luxury from the
court and from the camp; to substitute, in the place of the
barbarian mercenaries, an army of men interested in the
defence of their laws and of their property; to force, in
such a moment of public danger, the mechanic from his shop
and the philosopher from his school; to rouse the indolent
citizen from his dream of pleasure; and to arm, for the
protection of agriculture, the hands of the laborious
husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might deserve
the name and would display the spirit of Romans, he animates
the son of Theodosius to encounter a race of barbarians who
were destitute of any real courage; and never to lay down
his arms till he had chased them far away into the solitudes
of Scythia, or had reduced them to the state of ignominious
servitude which the Lacedaemonians formerly imposed on the
captive Helots.(21) The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal,
applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice of
Synesius. Perhaps the philosopher, who addresses the emperor
of the East in the language of reason and virtue which he
might have used to a Spartan king, had not condescended to
form a practicable scheme, consistent with the temper and
circumstances of a degenerate age. Perhaps the pride of the
ministers, whose business was seldom interrupted by
reflection, might reject, as wild and visionary, every
proposal which exceeded the measure of their capacity, and
deviated from the forms and precedents of office. While the
oration of Synesius and the downfall of the barbarians were
the topics of popular conversation, an edict was published
at Constantinople which declared the promotion of Alaric to
the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum. The
Roman provincials, and the allies who had respected the
faith of treaties, were justly indignant that the ruin of
Greece and Epirus should be so liberally rewarded. The
Gothic conqueror was received as a lawful magistrate in the
cities which he had so lately besieged. The fathers whose
sons he had massacred, the husbands whose wives he had
violated, were subject to his authority; and the success of
his rebellion encouraged the ambition of every leader of the
foreign mercenaries. The use to which Alaric applied his new
command distinguishes the firm and judicious character of
his policy. He issued his orders to the four magazines and
manufactures of offensive and defensive arms, Margus,
Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops
with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords,
and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge
the instruments of their own destruction; and the barbarians
removed the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the
efforts of their courage.(22) The birth of Alaric, the glory
of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future
designs, insensibly united the body of the nation under his
victorious standards; and, with the unanimous consent of the
barbarian chieftains, the master-general of Illyricum was
elevated, according to ancient custom, on a shield, and
solemnly and king of the Visigoths. proclaimed king of the Visigoths. (23) Armed with
this double power, seated on the verge of the two empires,
he alternately sold his deceitful promises to the courts of
Arcadius and Honorius, (24) till he declared and executed his
resolution of invading the dominions of the West. The
provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern emperor
were already exhausted, those of Asia were inaccessible, and
the strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But
he was tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy,
which he had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant
the Gothic standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his
army with the accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs.
(25)
He invades Italy, A.D.400-403
The scarcity of facts, (26) and the uncertainty of dates,(27) oppose our attempts to describe the circumstances of the
first invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march,
perhaps from Thessalonica, through the warlike and hostile
country of Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps;
his passage of those mountains, which were strongly guarded
by troops and entrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the
conquest of the provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to
have employed a considerable time. Unless his operations
were extremely cautious and slow, the length of the interval
would suggest a probable suspicion that the Gothic king
retreated towards the banks of the Danube, and reinforced
his army with fresh swarms of barbarians, before he again
attempted to penetrate into the heart of Italy. Since the
public and important events escape the diligence of the
historian, he may amuse himself with contemplating for a
moment the influence of the arms of Alaric on the fortunes
of two obscure individuals, a presbyter of Aquileia, and an
husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was summoned
by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod,(28) wisely
preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the
barbarians, who furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might
save him from the cruel sentence of another heretic, who, at
the request of the same bishops, was severely whipped and
condemned to perpetual exile on a desert island.(29) The old
man(30) who had passed his simple and innocent life in the neighbourhood of Verona, was a stranger to the quarrels both
of kings and of bishops; his pleasures, his desires, his
knowledge, were confined within the little circle of his
paternal farm; and a staff supported his aged steps on the
same ground where he had sported in his infancy. Yet even
this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian describes
with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to the
undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old
contemporary trees,(31) must blaze in the conflagration of
the whole country; a detachment of Gothic cavalry might
sweep away his cottage and his family; and the power of
Alaric could destroy this happiness, which he was not able
either to taste or to bestow.
"Fame," says the poet, "encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the barbarian army, and filled Italy with consternation:"
the apprehensions of each individual were increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and the most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects, meditated their escape to the island of Sicily or the African coast. The public distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition. (32) Every hour produced some horrid tale of strange and portentous accidents: the Pagans deplored the neglect of omens and the interruption of sacrifices; but the Christians still derived some comfort from the powerful intercession of the saints and martyrs. (33)
Honorius flies from Milan, A.D. 403.
The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects,
by the pre-eminence of fear as well as of rank. The pride
and luxury in which he was educated had not allowed him to
suspect that there existed on the earth any power
presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the successor of
Augustus. The arts of flattery concealed the impending
danger till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when
the sound of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of
flying to arms with the spirit, or even the rashness, of his
age, he eagerly listened to those timid counsellors who
proposed to convey his sacred person and his faithful
attendants to some secure and distant station in the
provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone (34) had courage and
authority to resist this disgraceful measure, which would
have abandoned Rome and Italy to the barbarians; but as the
troops of the palace had been lately detached to the
Rhaetian frontier, and as the resource of new levies was
slow and precarious, the general of the West could only
promise that, if the court of Milan would maintain their
ground during his absence, he would soon return with an army
equal to the encounter of the Gothic king. Without losing a
moment (while each moment was so important to the public
safety), Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian lake,
ascended the mountains of ice and snow amidst the severity
of an Alpine winter, and suddenly repressed, by his
unexpected presence, the enemy, who had disturbed the
tranquillity of Rhaetia. (35) The barbarians, perhaps some
tribes of the Alemanni, respected the firmness of a chief
who still assumed the language of command; and the choice
which he condescended to make of a select number of their
bravest youth was considered as a mark of his esteem and
favour. The cohorts, who were delivered from the
neighbouring foe, diligently repaired to the Imperial
standard; and Stilicho issued his orders to the most remote
troops of the West, to advance, by rapid marches, to the
defence of Honorius and of Italy. The fortresses of the
Rhine were abandoned; and the safety of Gaul was protected
only by the faith of the Germans, and the ancient terror of
the Roman name. Even the legion which had been stationed to
guard the wall of Britain against the Caledonians of the
North was hastily recalled, (36) and a numerous body of the
cavalry of the Alani was persuaded to engage in the service
of the emperor, who anxiously expected the return of his
general. The prudence and vigour of Stilicho were
conspicuous on this occasion, which revealed, at the same
time, the weakness of the falling empire. The legions of
Rome, which had long since languished in the gradual decay
of discipline and courage, were exterminated by the Gothic
and civil wars; and it was found impossible without
exhausting and exposing the provinces, to assemble an army
for the defence of Italy.
He is pursued and besieged by the Goths
When Stilicho seemed to abandon his sovereign in the
unguarded palace of Milan, he had probably calculated the
term of his absence, the distance of the enemy, and the
obstacles that might retard their march. He principally
depended on the rivers of Italy, the Adige, the Mincius, the
Oglio, and the Addua, which, in the winter or spring, by the
fall of rains, or by the melting of the snows, are commonly
swelled into broad and impetuous torrents.(37) But the season
happened to be remarkably dry; and the Goths could traverse,
without impediment, the wide and stony beds, whose centre
was faintly marked by the course of a shallow stream. The
bridge and passage of the Addua was secured by a strong
detachment of the Gothic army; and as Alaric approached the
walls, or rather the suburbs, of Milan, he enjoyed the proud
satisfaction of seeing the emperor of the Romans fly before
him. Honorius, accompanied by a feeble train of statesmen
and eunuchs, hastily retreated towards the Alps, with a
design of securing his person in the city of Arles, which
had often been the royal residence of his predecessors. But
Honorius (38) had scarcely passed the Po before he was
overtaken by the speed of the Gothic cavalry;(39) since the
urgency of the danger compelled him to seek a temporary
shelter within the fortification of Asta, a town of Liguria
or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus.(40) The
siege of an obscure place, which contained so rich a prize,
and seemed incapable of a long resistance, was instantly
formed, and indefatigably pressed, by the king of the Goths;
and the bold declaration, which the emperor might afterwards
make, that his breast had never been susceptible of fear,
did not probably obtain much credit even in his own court.
(41) In the last and almost hopeless extremity, after the
barbarians had already proposed the indignity of a
capitulation, the Imperial captive was suddenly relieved by
the fame, the approach, and at length the presence, of the
hero whom he had so long expected. At the head of a chosen
and intrepid vanguard, Stilicho swam the stream of the
Addua, to gain the time which he must have lost in the
attack of the bridge; the passage of the Po was an
enterprise of much less hazard and difficulty; and the
successful action, in which he cut his way through the
Gothic camp under the walls of Asta, revived the hopes and
vindicated the honour of Rome. Instead of grasping the fruit
of his victory, the barbarian was gradually invested, on
every side, by the troops of the West, who successively
issued through all the passes of the Alps; his quarters were
straitened; his convoys were intercepted; and the vigilance
of the Romans prepared to form a chain of fortifications,
and to besiege the lines of the besiegers. A military
council was assembled of the long-haired chiefs of the
Gothic nation; of aged warriors, whose bodies were wrapped
in furs, and whose stern countenances were marked with
honourable wounds. They weighed the glory of persisting in
their attempt against the advantage of securing their
plunder, and they recommended the prudent measure of a
seasonable retreat. In this important debate, Alaric
displayed the spirit of the conqueror of Rome; and after he
had reminded his countrymen of their achievements and of
their designs, he concluded his animating speech by the
solemn and positive assurance that he was resolved to find
in Italy either a kingdom or a grave.(42)
Battle of Pollentia, A.D. 403, March 29.
The loose discipline of the barbarians always exposed them
to the danger of a surprise; but, instead of choosing the
dissolute hours of riot and intemperance, Stilicho resolved
to attack the Christian Goths whilst they were devoutly
employed in celebrating the festival of Easter. (43) The
execution of the stratagem, or, as it was termed by the
clergy, of the sacrilege, was intrusted to Saul, a barbarian
and a Pagan, who had served, however, with distinguished
reputation among the veteran generals of Theodosius. The
camp of the Goths, which Alaric had pitched in the
neighbourhood of Pollentia, (44) was thrown into confusion by
the sudden and impetuous charge of the Imperial cavalry;
but, in a few moments, the undaunted genius of their leader
gave them an order and a field of battle; and, soon as they
had recovered from their astonishment, the pious confidence
that the God of the Christians would assert their cause
added new strength to their native valour. In this
engagement, which was long maintained with equal courage and
success, the chief of the Alani, whose diminutive and savage
form concealed a magnanimous soul, approved his suspected
loyalty, by the zeal with which he fought and fell in the
service of the republic; and the fame of this gallant
barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of
Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his virtue, has
omitted the mention of his name. His death was followed by
the flight and dismay of the squadrons which he commanded;
and the defeat of the wing of cavalry might have decided the
victory of Alaric, if Stilicho had not immediately led the
Roman and barbarian infantry to the attack. The skill of the
general, and the bravery of the soldiers, surmounted every
obstacle. In the evening of the bloody day, the Goths
retreated from the field of battle; the entrenchments of
their camp were forced, and the scene of rapine and
slaughter made some atonement for the calamities which they
had inflicted on the subjects of the empire. (45) The
magnificent spoils of Corinth and Argos enriched the
veterans of the West; the captive wife of Alaric, who had
impatiently claimed his promise of Roman jewels and
Patrician handmaids,(46) was reduced to implore the mercy of
the insulting foe; and many thousand prisoners, released
from the Gothic chains, dispersed through the provinces of
Italy the praises of their heroic deliverer. The triumph of
Stilicho(47) was compared by the poet, and perhaps by the
public, to that of Marius; who, in the same part of Italy,
had encountered and destroyed another army of Northern
barbarians. The huge bones and the empty helmets of the
Cimbri and of the Goths would easily be confounded by
succeeding generations; and posterity might erect a common
trophy to the memory of the two most illustrious generals,
who had vanquished, on the same memorable ground, the two
most formidable enemies of Rome.(48)
Boldnes and retreat of Alaric
The eloquence of Claudian (49) has celebrated, with lavish
applause, the victory of Pollentia, one of the most glorious
days in the life of his patron; but his reluctant and
partial muse bestows more genuine praise on the character of
the Gothic king. His name is, indeed, branded with the
reproachful epithets of pirate and robber, to which the
conquerors of every age are so justly entitled; but the poet
of Stilicho is compelled to acknowledge that Alaric
possessed the invincible temper of mind which rises superior
o every misfortune, and derives new resources from
adversity. After the total defeat of his infantry, he
escaped, or rather withdrew, from the field of battle, with
the greatest part of his cavalry entire and unbroken.
Without wasting a moment to lament the irreparable loss of
so many brave companions, he left his victorious enemy to
bind in chains the captive images of a Gothic king;(50) and
boldly resolved to break through the unguarded passes of the
Apennine, to spread desolation over the fruitful face of
Tuscany, and to conquer or die before the gates of Rome. The
capital was saved by the active and incessant diligence of
Stilicho; but he respected the despair of his enemy; and,
instead of committing the fate of the republic to the chance
of another battle, he proposed to purchase the absence of
the barbarians. The spirit of Alaric would have rejected
such terms, the permission of a retreat, and the offer of a
pension, with contempt and indignation; but he exercised a
limited and precarious authority over the independent
chieftains who had raised him, for their service, above the
rank of his equals; they were still less disposed to follow
an unsuccessful general, and many of them were tempted to
consult their interest by a private negotiation with the
minister of Honorius. The king submitted to the voice of his
people, ratified the treaty with the empire of the West, and
repassed the Po with the remains of the flourishing army
which he had led into Italy. A considerable part of the
Roman forces still continued to attend his motions: and
Stilicho, who maintained a secret correspondence with some
of the barbarian chiefs, was punctually appraised of the
designs that were formed in the camp and council of Alaric.
The king of the Goths, ambitious to signalise his retreat by
some splendid achievement, had resolved to occupy the
important city of Verona, which commands the principal
passage of the Rhaetian Alps; and, directing his march
through the territories of those German tribes whose
alliance would restore his exhausted strength, to invade, on
the side of the Rhine, the wealthy and unsuspecting
provinces of Gaul. Ignorant of the treason which had already
betrayed his bold and judicious enterprise, he advanced
towards the passes of the mountains, already possessed by
the Imperial troops; where he was exposed, almost at the
same instant, to a general attack in the front, on his
flanks, and in the rear. In this bloody action, at a small
distance from the walls of Verona, the loss of the Goths was
not less heavy than that which they had sustained in the
defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant king, who escaped by
the swiftness of his horse, must either have been slain or
made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of the Alani had not
disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric
secured the remains of his army on the adjacent rocks; and
prepared himself, with undaunted resolution, to maintain a
siege against the superior numbers of the enemy, who
invested him on all sides. But he could not oppose the
destructive progress of hunger and disease; nor was it
possible for him to check the continual desertion of his
impatient and capricious barbarians. In this extremity he
still found resources in his own courage, or in the
moderation of his adversary; and the retreat of the Gothic
king was considered as the deliverance of Italy.(51) Yet the
people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any
rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed
to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished,
so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable
enemy of the republic. The first moment of the public safety
is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is
diligently occupied by envy and calumny.(52)
The triumph of Honorius at Rome, A.D. 404
The citizens of Rome had been astonished by the approach of
Alaric; and the diligence with which they laboured to
restore the walls of the capital confessed their own fears,
and the decline of the empire. After the retreat of the
barbarians, Honorius was directed to accept the dutiful
invitation of the senate, and to celebrate, in the Imperial
city, the auspicious era of the Gothic victory, and of his
sixth consulship.(53) The suburbs and the streets, from the
Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were filled by the
Roman people, who, in the space of an hundred years, had
only thrice been honoured with the presence of their
sovereigns. While their eyes were fixed on the chariot where
Stilicho was deservedly seated by the side of his royal
pupil, they applauded the pomp of a triumph which was not
stained, like that of Constantine or of Theodosius, with
civil blood. The procession passed under a lofty arch, which
had been purposely erected: but in less than seven years,
the Gothic conquerors of Rome might read, if they were able
to read, the superb inscription of that monument, which
attested the total defeat and destruction of their nation.
(54) The emperor resided several months in the capital, and
every part of his behaviour was regulated with care to
conciliate the affection of the clergy, the senate, and the
people of Rome. The clergy was edified by his frequent
visits, and liberal gifts, to the shrines of the apostles.
The senate, who, in the triumphal procession, had been
excused from the humiliating ceremony of preceding on foot
the Imperial chariot, was treated with the decent reverence
which Stilicho always affected for that assembly. The people
was repeatedly gratified by the attention and courtesy of
Honorius in the public games, which were celebrated on that
occasion with a magnificence not unworthy of the spectator.
As soon as the appointed number of chariot-races was
concluded, the decoration of the circus was suddenly
changed; the hunting of wild beasts afforded a various and
splendid entertainment; and the chase was succeeded by a
military dance, which seems, in the lively description of
Claudian, to present the image of a modern tournament.
The gladiators abolished.
In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of
gladiators(55) polluted for the last time the amphitheatre of
Rome. The first Christian emperor may claim the honour of
the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of
shedding human blood; (56) but this benevolent law expressed
the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate
abuse which degraded a civilised nation below the condition
of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps several
thousand, victims were annually slaughtered in the great
cities of the empire; and the month of December, more
peculiarly devoted to the combats of gladiators, still
exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful
spectacle of blood and cruelty. Amidst the general joy of
the victory of Pollentia, a Christian poet exhorted the
emperor to extirpate, by his authority, the horrid custom
which had so long resisted the voice of humanity and
religion.(57) The pathetic representations of Prudentius were
less effectual than the generous boldness of Telemachus, an
Asiatis monk, whose death was more useful to mankind than
his life.(58) The Romans were provoked by the interruption of
their pleasures; and the rash monk, who had descended into
the arena, to separate the gladiators, was overwhelmed under
a shower of stones. But the madness of the people soon
subsided: they respected the memory of Telemachus, who had
deserved the honours of martyrdom; and they submitted,
without a murmur, to the laws of Honorius, which abolished
for ever the human sacrifices of the amphitheatre. The
citizens, who adhered to the manners of their ancestors,
might perhaps insinuate that the last remains of a martial
spirit were preserved in this school of fortitude, which
accustomed the Romans to the sight of blood, and to the
contempt of death: a vain and cruel prejudice, so nobly
confuted by the valour of ancient Greece and of modern
Europe!(59)
Honorius fixes his residence at Ravenna, A.D. 404
The recent danger to which the person of the emperor had
been exposed in the defenceless palace of Milan urged him to
seek a retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where
he might securely remain, while the open country was covered
by a deluge of barbarians. On the coast of the Hadriatic,
about ten or twelve miles from the most southern of the
seven mouths of the Po, the Thessalians had founded the
ancient colony of RAVENNA,(60) which they afterwards resigned
to the natives of Umbria. Augustus, who had observed the
opportunity of the place, prepared, at the distance of three
miles from the old town, a capacious harbour for the
reception Of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This naval
establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines,
the barracks of the troops, and the houses of the
artificers, derived its origin and name from the permanent
station of the Roman fleet; the intermediate space was soon
filled with buildings and inhabitants, and the three
extensive and populous quarters of Ravenna gradually
contributed to form one of the most important cities of
Italy. The principal canal of Augustus poured a copious
stream of the waters of the Po through the midst of the
city, to the entrance of the harbour; the same waters were
introduced into the profound ditches that encompassed the
walls; they were distributed by a thousand subordinate
canals into every part of the city, which they divided into
a variety of small islands; the communication was maintained
only by the use of boats and bridges; and the houses of
Ravenna, whose appearance may be compared to that of Venice,
were raised on the foundation of wooden piles. The adjacent
country, to the distance of many miles, was a deep and
impassable morass; and the artificial causeway which
connected Ravenna with the continent might be easily guarded
or destroyed on the approach of an hostile army. These
morasses were interspersed, however, with vineyards; and
though the soil was exhausted by four or five crops, the
town enjoyed a more plentiful supply of wine than of fresh
water.(61) The air, instead of receiving the sickly and
almost pestilential exhalations of low and marshy grounds,
was distinguished, like the neighbourhood of Alexandria, as
uncommonly pure and salubrious; and this singular advantage
was ascribed to the regular tides of the Hadriatic, which
swept the canals, interrupted the unwholesome stagnation of
the waters, and floated, every day, the vessels of the
adjacent country into the heart of Ravenna. The gradual
retreat of the sea has left the modern city at the distance
of four miles from the Hadriatic, and as early as the fifth
or sixth century of the Christian era the port of Augustus
was converted into pleasant orchards, and a lonely grove of
pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at
anchor.(62) Even this alteration contributed to increase the
natural strength of the place, and the shallowness of the
water was a sufficient barrier against the large ships of
the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified by art
and labour; and in the twentieth year of his age the emperor
of the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired
to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of
Ravenna. The example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble
successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs,
who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and till
the middle of the eighth century Ravenna was considered as
the seat of government and the capital of Italy.(63)
The revolutions of Scythia, A.D. 400
The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were
his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her
deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited
among the nations of Germany, who yielded to the
irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually
communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of
Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by
the learned industry of the present age, may be usefully
applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of the fall
of the Roman empire. The extensive territory to the north of
the great wall was possessed after the flight of the Huns by
the victorious Sienpi; who were sometimes broken into
independent tribes, and sometimes re-united under a supreme
chief; till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters
of the earth, they acquired a more solid consistence and a
more formidable power. The Topa soon compelled the pastoral
nations of the eastern desert to acknowledge the superiority
of their arms; they invaded China in a period of weakness
and intestine discord; and these fortunate Tartars, adopting
the laws and manners of the vanquished people, founded an
Imperial dynasty, which reigned near one hundred and sixty
years over the northern provinces of the monarchy. Some
generations before they ascended the throne of China, one of
the Topa princes had enlisted in his cavalry a slave of the
name of Moko, renowned for his valour, but who was tempted,
by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and to
range the desert at the head of an hundred followers. This
gang of robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a
numerous people, distinguished by the appellation of
'Geougen'; and their hereditary chieftains, the posterity of
Moko the slave, assumed their rank among the Scythian
monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the greatest of his
descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes which are
the school of heroes. He bravely struggled with adversity,
broke the imperious yoke of the Topa, and became the
legislator of his nation and the conqueror of Tartary. His
troops were distributed into regular bands of an hundred and
of a thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most
splendid honours were proposed as the reward of valour; and
Toulun, who had knowledge enough to despise the learning of
China, adopted only such arts and institutions as were
favourable to the military spirit of his government. His
tents, which he removed in the winter season to a more
southern latitude, were pitched during the summer on the
fruitful banks of the Selinga. His conquests stretched from
Corea far beyond the river Irtish. He vanquished, in the
country to the north of the Caspian sea, the nation of the
Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan, expressed
the fame and power which he derived from this memorable
victory.(64)
Emigration of the northern Germans, A.D. 405
The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed,
as it passes from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark
interval which separates the extreme limits of the Chinese
and of the Roman geography. Yet the temper of the
barbarians, and the experience of successive emigrations,
sufficiently declare that the Huns, who were oppressed by
the arms of the Geougen, soon withdrew from the presence of
an insulting victor. The countries towards the Euxine were
already occupied by their kindred tribes; and their hasty
flight, which they soon converted into a bold attack, would
more naturally be directed towards the rich and level plains
through which the Vistula gently flows into the Baltic sea.
The North must again have been alarmed and agitated by the
invasion of the Huns; and the nations who retreated before
them must have pressed with incumbent weight on the confines
of Germany.(65) The inhabitants of those regions which the
ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the Vandals, and the
Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning to
the fugitives of Sarmatia their woods and morasses, or at
least discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces
of the Roman empire. (66) About four years after the
victorious Toulun had assumed the title of Khan of the
Geougen, another barbarian, the haughty Rhodogast, or
Radagaisus,(67) marched from the northern extremities of
Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of
his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The
Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, formed the strength
of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found an
hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active
cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic
adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of
Radagaisus, that, by some historians, he has been styled the
King of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished
above the vulgar by their noble birth or their valiant
deeds, glittered in the van; (68) and the whole multitude,
which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men,
might be increased, by the accession of women, of children,
and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand
persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same
coast of the Baltic which had poured forth the myriads of
the Cimbri and Teutones to assault Rome and Italy in the
vigour of the republic. After the departure of those
barbarians, their native country, which was marked by the
vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts and gigantic
moles,(69) remained, during some ages, a vast and dreary
solitude; till the human species was renewed by the powers
of generation, and the vacancy was filled by the influx of
new inhabitants. The nations who now usurp an extent of land
which they are unable to cultivate would soon be assisted by
the industrious poverty of their neighbours, if the
government of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion
and property.
Radagaisus invades Italy, A.D. 406
The correspondence of nations was in that age so imperfect
and precarious, that the revolutions of the North might
escape the knowledge of the court of Ravenna, till the dark
cloud, which was collected along the coast of the Baltic,
burst in thunder upon the banks of the Upper Danube. The
emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his
amusements by the news of the impending danger, was
satisfied with being the occasion and the spectator of the
war.(70) The safety of Rome was intrusted to the counsels and
the sword of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted
state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the
fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent by a vigorous
effort the invasion of the Germans. (71) The hopes of the
vigilant minister of Honorius were confined to the defence
of Italy. He once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the
troops, pressed the new levies, which were rigorously
exacted and pusillanimously eluded; employed the most
efficacious means to arrest or allure the deserters; and
offered the gift of freedom and of two pieces of gold to all
the slaves who would enlist. (72) By these efforts he
painfully collected from the subjects of a great empire an
army of thirty or forty thousand men, which in the days of
Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly furnished by
the free citizens of the territory of Rome.(73) The thirty
legions of Stilicho were reinforced by a large body of
barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were personally
attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of
Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes
Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment
to oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the
confederate Germans passed without resistance the Alps, the
Po, and the Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible
palace of Honorius securely buried among the marshes of
Ravenna, and, on the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had
fixed his headquarters at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems
to have avoided a decisive battle till he had assembled his
distant forces. Many cities of Italy were pillaged or
destroyed; Besieges Florence and the siege of Florence(74) by Radagaisus is one
of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated
republic, whose firmness checked and delayed the unskilful
fury of the barbarians. The senate and people trembled at
their approach within an hundred and eighty miles of Rome,
and anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped
with the new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a
Christian and a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army;
who understood the laws of war, who respected the sanctity
of treaties, and who had familiarly conversed with the
subjects of the empire in the same camps and the same
churches. The savage Radagaisus was a stranger to the
manners, the religion, and even the language of the
civilised nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper
was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was
universally believed, and threatens Rome that he had bound himself by a solemn
vow to reduce the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and
to sacrifice the most illustrious of the Roman senators on
the altars of those gods who were appeased by human blood.
The public danger, which should have reconciled all domestic
animosities, displayed the incurable madness of religious
faction. The oppressed votaries of Jupiter and Mercury
respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome, the character of
a devout Pagan; loudly declared that they were more
apprehensive of the sacrifices than of the arms of
Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of their
country, which condemned the faith of their Christian
adversaries.(75)
Defeat and destruction of his army by Stilicho, A.D. 406
Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting
courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority
of St. Ambrose, who had communicated in a dream the promise
of a speedy deliverance. (76) On a sudden they beheld from
their walls the banners of Stilicho, who advanced with his
united force to the relief of the faithful city, and who
soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the barbarian
host. The apparent contradictions of those writers who
variously relate the defeat of Radagaisus, may be reconciled
without offering much violence to their respective
testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were intimately
connected by friendship and religion, ascribe this
miraculous victory to the providence of God rather than to
the valour of man. (77) They strictly exclude every idea of
chance, or even of bloodshed, and positively affirm that the
Romans, whose camp was the scene of plenty and idleness,
enjoyed the distress of the barbarians slowly expiring on
the sharp and barren ridge of the hills of Faesula, which
rise above the city of Florence. Their extravagant assertion
that not a single soldier of the Christian army was killed,
or even wounded, may be dismissed with silent contempt; but
the rest of the narrative of Augustin and Orosius is
consistent with the state of the war and the character of
Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army of the
republic his prudence would not expose it in the open field
to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of
surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation,
which he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was
repeated on a larger scale and with more considerable
effect. The examples of Caesar must have been familiar to
the most illiterate of the Roman warriors; and the
fortifications of Dyrrachium, which connected twenty-four
castles by a perpetual ditch and rampart of fifteen miles,
afforded the model of an entrenchment which might confine
and starve the most numerous host of barbarians.(78) The
Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry than
from the valour of their ancestors; and if the servile and
laborious work offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany
could supply many thousand peasants who would labour, though
perhaps they would not fight, for the salvation of their
native country. The imprisoned multitude of horses and men
(79) was gradually destroyed by famine other than by the
sword; but the Romans were exposed during the progress of
such an extensive work to the frequent attacks of an
impatient enemy. The despair of the hungry barbarians would
precipitate them against the fortifications of Stilicho; the
general might sometimes indulge the ardour of his brave
auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to assault the camp of the
Germans; and these various incidents might produce the sharp
and bloody conflict; which dignify the narrative of Zosimus
and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus. (80) A
seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced
into the walls of Florence, and the famished host of
Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so
many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest
warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a
capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho.(81) But the
death of the royal captive, who was ignominiously beheaded,
disgraced the triumph of Rome and of Christianity; and the
short delay of his execution was sufficient to brand the
conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty.(82)
The famished Germans who escaped the fury of the auxiliaries
were sold as slaves, at the contemptible price of as many
single pieces of gold; but the difference of food and
climate swept away great numbers of those unhappy strangers;
and it was observed that the inhuman purchasers, instead of
reaping the fruits of their labour, were soon obliged to
provide the expense of their internment. Stilicho informed
the emperor and the senate of his success, and deserved a
second time the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy.(83)
The remainder of the Germans invade Gaul, A.D. 406, December 31.
The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle,
has encouraged a vain persuasion that the whole army, or
rather nation, of Germans who migrated from the shores of
the Baltic miserably perished under the walls of Florence.
Such indeed was the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave
and faithful companions, and of more than one-third of the
various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and
Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of their general.
(84) The union of such an army might excite our surprise, but
the causes of separation are obvious and forcible: the pride
of birth, the insolence of valour, the jealousy of command,
the impatience of subordination, and the obstinate conflict
of opinions, of interests, and of passions, among so many
kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield or to obey.
After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German
host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred
thousand men, still remained in arms between the Apennine
and the Alps, or between the Alps and the Danube. It is
uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death of
their general; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by
the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their
march and facilitated their retreat, who considered the
safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his care,
and who sacrificed with too much indifference the wealth and
tranquillity of the distant provinces. (85) The barbarians
acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters, the
knowledge of the country and of the roads, and the invasion
of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by the
remains of the great army of Radagaisus.(86)
Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of Germany who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality, and the Franks distinguish their zeal and courage in the defence of the empire. In the rapid progress down the Rhine which was the first act of the administration of Stilicho, he had applied himself with peculiar attention to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and to remove the irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic. Marcomil one of their kings, was publicly convicted before the tribunal of the Roman magistrate of violating the faith of treaties. He was sentenced to a mild but distant exile in the province of Tuscany; and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far from exciting the resentment o his subjects, that they punished with death the turbulent Sunno, who attempted to revenge his brother, and maintained a dutiful allegiance to the princes who were established on the throne by the choice of Stilicho.(87) When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of the Vandals, who regardless of the lessons of adversity, had again separated their troops from the standard of their barbarian allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated if the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the Franks, who, after an honourable resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilised nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground.(88)
Desolation of Gaul, A.D. 407
While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of
the Franks and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects
of Rome, unconscious of their approaching calamities,
enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity which had seldom
blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were
permitted to graze in the pastures of the barbarians; their
huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the
darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood.(89) The banks of the
Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant
houses and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet descended
the river, he might express his doubt on which side was
situated the territory of the Romans.(90) This scene of peace
and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the
prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the
solitude of nature from the desolation of man. The
flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed, and
many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the
church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate siege;
Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens,
experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and the
consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine
over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul.
That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the
Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians, who
drove before them in a promiscuous crowd the bishop, the
senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their
houses and altars. (91) The ecclesiastics, to whom we are
indebted for this vague description of the public
calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting the
Christians to repent of the sins which had provoked the
Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable, goods of a
wretched and deceitful world. But as, the Pelagian
controversy,(92) which attempts to sound the abyss of grace
and predestination, soon became the serious employment of
the Latin clergy, the Providence which had decreed, or
foreseen, or permitted, such a train of moral and natural
evils, was rashly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious
balance of reason. The crimes and the misfortunes of the
suffering people were presumptuously compared with those of
their ancestors, and they arraigned the Divine Justice,
which did not exempt from the common destruction, the
feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human
species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable
laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence,
plenty with industry, and safety with valour. The timid and
selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the
Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of
the stationary troops might be unequal to the arduous task;
and the barbarian auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded
licence of spoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular
stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled with a
numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in the defence
of their houses, their families, and their altars, if they
had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The
knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an invader; and the deficiency of the barbarians in arms as well as in discipline removed the only pretence which excuses the submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles the Fifth, he inquired of a prisoner how many 'days' Paris might be distant from the frontier; "Perhaps 'twelve', but they will be days of battle:" (93) such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius and those of Francis I. were animated by a very different spirit, and in less than two years the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced without a combat to the foot of the Pyrenaean mountains.
Revolt of the British army, A.D. 407
In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of Stilicho had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain from her incessant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the Irish coast. (94) But those restless barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bounds of allegiance, and to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and at length the victims, of their passion.(95) Marcus was the first whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus, the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves; and their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an honourable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predecessor. The memory of the great Constantine, whom the British legions had given to the church and to the empire, suggested the singular motive of their third choice. Constantine Is Acknowledged in Britain and Gaul, A.D. 407 They discovered in the ranks a private soldier of the name of Constantine, and their impetuous levity had already seated him on the throne, before they perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious appellation.(96) Yet the authority of Constantine was less precarious, and his government was more successful, than the transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving his inactive troops in those camps which had been twice polluted with blood and sedition urged him to attempt the reduction of the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days, he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of allegiance; their actual distress encouraged them to accept any circumstances of change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, with some degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves that the troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country from the rage of the barbarians. The first successes of Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans were magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive victories, which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon reduced to their just value. His negotiations procured a short and precarious truce; and if some tribes of the barbarians were engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive and uncertain treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigour of the Gallic frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the prince, and to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic. Elated however with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter a more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius; and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in this domestic quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former whom was slain in the field of battle, the last in a peaceful but treacherous interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls of Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws of the Alps. (97) Those mountains now separated the dominions of two rival monarchs: and the fortifications of the double frontier were guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against the barbarians of Germany and Scythia.
He reduces Spain, A.D. 408
On this side of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Constantine
might be justified by the proximity of danger; but his
throne was soon established by the conquest, or rather
submission, of Spain, which yielded to the influence of
regular and habitual subordination, and received the laws
and magistrates of the Gallic praefecture. The only
opposition which was made to the authority of Constantine
proceeded not so much from the powers of government, or the
spirit of the people, as from the private zeal and interest
of the family of Theodosius. Four brothers(98) had obtained,
by the favour of their kinsman, the deceased emperor, an
honourable rank, and ample possessions, in their native
country; and the grateful youths resolved to risk those
advantages in the service of his son. After an unsuccessful
effort to maintain their ground at the head of the
stationary troops of Lusitania, they retired to their
estates; where they armed and levied, at their own expense,
a considerable body of slaves and dependents, and boldly
marched to occupy the strong posts of the Pyrenaean
mountains. This domestic insurrection alarmed and perplexed
the sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was compelled to
negotiate with some troops of barbarian auxiliaries, for the
service of the Spanish war. They were distinguished by the
title of Honorarians, (99) a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity to their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that the Scots were influenced by
any partial affection for a British prince, the Moors and
the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the profuse
liberality of the usurper, who distributed among the
barbarians the military, and even the civil, honours of
Spain. The nine bands of Honorians, which may be easily
traced on the establishment of the Western empire, could not
exceed the number of five thousand men; yet this
inconsiderable force was sufficient to terminate a war which
had threatened the power and safety of Constantine. The
rustic army of the Theodosian family was surrounded and
destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers had the good
fortune to escape by sea to Italy or the East; the other
two, after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles;
and if Honorius could remain insensible of the public
disgrace, he might perhaps be affected by the personal
misfortunes of his generous kinsmen. Such were the feeble
arms which decided the possession of the Western provinces
of Europe, from the wall of Antoninus to the Columns of
Hercules. The events of peace and war have undoubtedly been
diminished by the narrow and imperfect view of the
historians of the times, who were equally ignorant of the
causes and of the effects of the most important revolutions.
But the total decay of the national strength had annihilated
even the last resource of a despotic government; and the
revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the
military service of a discontented and pusillanimous people.
Negotiations of Alaric and Stilicho, A.D. 404-408
The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the
victories of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat
of Alaric from the confines of Italy, with a horrid train of
imaginary spectres, such as might hover over an army of
barbarians which was almost exterminated by war, famine, and
disease.(100) In the course of this unfortunate expedition,
the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a
considerable loss; and his harassed forces required an
interval of repose to recruit their numbers and revive their
confidence. Adversity had exercised and displayed the genius
of Alaric; and the fame of his valour invited to the Gothic
standard the bravest of the barbarian warriors, who, from
the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire of
rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he soon
accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the
service of the emperor of the East, Alaric concluded with
the court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and alliance, by
which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies
throughout the praefecture of Illyricum; as it was claimed,
according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of
Honorius.(101) The execution of the ambitious design, which
was either stipulated or implied in the articles of the
treaty, appears to have been suspended by the formidable
irruption of Radagaisus; and the neutrality of the Gothic
king may perhaps be compared to the indifference of Caesar,
who, in the conspiracy of Catiline, refused either to assist
or to oppose the enemy of the republic. After the defeat of
the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his pretensions to the
provinces of the East; appointed civil magistrates for the
administration of justice and of the finances; and declared
his impatience to lead to the gates of Constantinople the
united armies of the Romans and of the Goths. The prudence,
however, of Stilicho, his aversion to civil war, and his
perfect knowledge of the weakness of the state, may
countenance the suspicion that domestic peace, rather than
foreign conquest, was the object of his policy; and that his
principal care was to employ the forces of Alaric at a
distance from Italy. This design could not long escape the
penetration of the Gothic king, who continued to hold a
doubtful, and perhaps a treacherous, correspondence with the
rival courts; who protracted, like a dissatisfied mercenary,
his languid operations of Thessaly and Epirus; and who soon
returned to claim the extravagant reward of his ineffectual
services. From his camp near Aemona,(102) on the confines of
Italy, he transmitted to the emperor of the West a long
account of promises, of expenses, and of demands; called for
immediate satisfaction, and clearly intimated the
consequences of a refusal. Yet, if his conduct was hostile,
his language was decent and dutiful. He humbly professed
himself the friend of Stilicho, and the soldier of Honorius;
offered his person and his troops to march, without delay,
against the usurper of Gaul; and solicited, as a permanent
retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession of some vacant
province of the Western empire.
Debates of the Roman senate, A.D. 408
The political and secret transactions of two statesmen who
laboured to deceive each other and the world must for ever
have been concealed in the impenetrable darkness of the
cabinet, if the debates of a popular assembly had not thrown
some rays of light on the correspondence of Alaric and
Stilicho. The necessity of finding some artificial support
for a government which, from a principle, not of moderation,
but of weakness, was reduced to negotiate with its own
subjects, had insensibly revived the authority of the Roman
senate: and the minister of Honorius respectfully consulted
the legislative council of the republic. Stilicho assembled
the senate in the palace of the Caesars; represented, in a
studied oration, the actual state of affairs; proposed the
demands of the Gothic king; and submitted to their
consideration the choice of peace or war. The senators, as
if they had been suddenly awakened from a dream of four
hundred years, appeared on this important occasion to be
inspired by the courage, rather than by the wisdom; of their
predecessors. They loudly declared, in regular speeches or
in tumultuary acclamations, that it was unworthy of the
majesty of Rome to purchase a precarious and disgraceful
truce from a barbarian king; and that, in the judgment of a
magnanimous people, the chance of ruin was always preferable
to the certainty of dishonour. The minister, whose pacific
intentions were seconded only by the voices of a few servile
and venal followers, attempted to allay the general ferment,
by an apology for his own conduct, and even for the demands
of the Gothic prince.
"The payment of a subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans, ought not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the odious light either of a tribute or of a ransom, extorted by the menaces of a barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted the just pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were usurped by the Greeks of Constantinople: he modestly required the fair and stipulated recompense of his services; and if he had desisted from the prosecution of his enterprise, he had obeyed, in his retreat, the peremptory, though private, letters of the emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he would not dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by the intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of her adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily prevailed over the stern dictates of the public welfare."
These ostensible reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues of the palace of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of Stilicho; and obtained, after a warm debate, the reluctant approbation of the senate. The tumult of virtue and freedom subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of gold was granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace of Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths. Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the assembly, still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed with a loud voice,
"This is not a treaty of peace, but of servitude ;" (103)
and escaped the danger of such bold opposition by immediately retiring to the sanctuary of a Christian church.
Intrigue of the palace, A.D. 408, May
But the reign of Stilicho drew towards its end; and the
proud minister might perceive the symptoms of his
approaching disgrace. The generous boldness of Lampadius had
been applauded; and the senate, so patiently resigned to a
long servitude, rejected with disdain the offer of invidious
and imaginary freedom. The troops, who still assumed the
name and prerogatives of the Roman legions, were exasperated
by the partial affection of Stilicho for the barbarians: and
the people imputed to the mischievous policy of the minister
the public misfortunes, which were the natural consequence
of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have continued
to brave the clamours of the people, and even of the
soldiers, if he could have maintained his dominion over the
feeble mind of his pupil. But the respectful attachment of
Honorius was converted into fear, suspicion and hatred. The
crafty Olympius,(104) who concealed his vices under the mask
of Christian piety, had secretly undermined the benefactor
by whose favour he was promoted to the honourable offices of
the Imperial palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting
emperor, who had attained the twenty-fifth year of his age,
that he was without weight or authority in his own
government; and artfully alarmed his timid and indolent
disposition by a lively picture of the designs of Stilicho,
who already meditated the death of his sovereign, with the
ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the head of his son
Eucherius. The emperor was instigated by his new favourite
to assume the tone of independent dignity; and the minister
was astonished to find that secret resolutions were formed
in the court and council, which were repugnant to his
interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in the
palace of Rome, Honorius declared that it was his pleasure
to return to the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first
intelligence of the death of his brother Arcadius, he
prepared to visit Constantinople, and to regulate, with the
authority of a guardian, the provinces of the infant
Theodosius.(105) The representation of the difficulty and
expense of such a distant expedition checked this strange
and sudden sally of active diligence; but the dangerous
project of showing the emperor to the camp of Pavia, which
was composed of the Roman troops, the enemies of Stilicho
and his barbarian auxiliaries, remained fixed and
unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of his
confidant, Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and
penetrating genius, to oppose a journey so prejudicial to
his reputation and safety. His strenuous, but ineffectual,
efforts confirmed the triumph of Olympius; and the prudent
lawyer withdrew himself from the impending ruin of his
patron.
Disgrace and death of Stlicho, A.D. 408, August 23
In the passage of the emperor through Bologna a mutiny of
the guards was excited and appeased by the secret policy of
Stilicho, who announced his instructions to decimate the
guilty, and ascribed to his own intercession the merit of
their pardon. After this tumult, Honorius embraced, for the
last time, the minister whom he now considered as a tyrant,
and proceeded on his way to the camp of Pavia, where he was
received by the loyal acclamations of the troops who were
assembled for the service of the Gallic war. On the morning
of the fourth day he pronounced, as he had been taught, a
military oration in the presence of the soldiers, whom the
charitable visits and artful discourses of Olympius had
prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At the
first signal they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the
most illustrious officers of the empire; two Praetorian
praefects, of Gaul and of Italy; two masters-general of the
cavalry and infantry; the master of the offices, the
quaestor, the treasurer, and the count of the domestics.
Many lives were lost, many houses were plundered; the
furious sedition continued to rage till the close of the
evening; and the trembling emperor, who was seen in the
streets of Pavia without his robes or diadem, yielded to the
persuasions of his favourite, condemned the memory of the
slain, and solemnly approved the innocence and fidelity of
their assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia
filled the mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy
apprehensions, and he instantly summoned, in the camp of
Bologna, a council of the confederate leaders who were
attached to his service, and would be involved in his ruin.
The impetuous voice of the assembly called aloud for arms
and for revenge; to march, without a moment's delay, under
the banners of a hero whom they had so often followed to
victory; to surprise, to oppress, to extirpate the guilty
Olympius and his degenerate Romans, and perhaps to fix the
diadem on the head of their injured general. Instead of
executing a resolution which might have been justified by
success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost.
He was still ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he
distrusted the fidelity of his own party and he viewed with
horror the fatal consequences of arming a crowd of
licentious barbarians against the soldiers and people of
Italy. The confederates, impatient of his timorous and
doubtful delay, hastily retired with fear and indignation.
At the hour of midnight Sarus, a Gothic warrior, renowned
among the barbarians themselves for his strength and valour,
suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor, plundered the
baggage, cut in pieces the faithful Huns who guarded his
person, and penetrated to the tent, where the minister,
pensive and sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his
situation. Stilicho escaped with difficulty from the sword
of the Goth, and after issuing a last and generous
admonition to the cities of Italy to shut their gates
against the barbarians, his confidence or his despair urged
him to throw himself into Ravenna, which was already in the
absolute possession of his enemies. Olympius, who had
assumed the dominion of Honorius, was speedily informed that
his rival had embraced, as a suppliant, the altar of the
Christian church. The base and cruel disposition of the
hypocrite was incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously
affected to elude, rather than to violate, the privilege of
the sanctuary. Count Heraclian, with a troop of soldiers,
appeared at the dawn of day before the gates of the church
of Ravenna. The bishop was satisfied by a solemn oath that
the Imperial mandate only directed them to secure the person
of Stilicho: but as soon as the unfortunate minister had
been tempted beyond the holy threshold, he produced the
warrant for his instant execution. Stilicho supported with
calm resignation the injurious names of traitor and
parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his followers,
who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and, with a
firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals,
submitted his neck to the sword of Heraclian.(106)
His memory persecuted
The servile crowd of the palace, who had so long adored the
fortune of Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the
most distant connection with the master-general of the West,
which had so lately been a title to wealth and honours, was
studiously denied, and rigorously punished. His family,
united by a triple alliance with the family of Theodosius,
might envy the condition of the meanest peasant. The flight
of his son Eucherius was intercepted, and the death of that
innocent youth soon followed the divorce of Thermantia, who
filled the place of her sister Maria, and who, like Maria,
had remained a virgin in the Imperial bed.(107) The friends
of Stilicho who had escaped the massacre of Pavia were
persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius, and the
most exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession
of a treasonable and sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in
silence; their firmness justified the choice, (108) and
perhaps absolved the innocence, of their patron; and the
despotic power which could take his life without a trial,
and stigmatise his memory without a proof, has no
jurisdiction over the impartial suffrage of posterity.(109)
The services of Stilicho are great and manifest; his crimes,
as they are vaguely stated in the language of flattery and
hatred, are obscure, at least, and improbable. About four
months after his death an edict was published, in the name
of Honorius, to restore the free communication of the two
empires, which had been so long interrupted by the public
enemy.(110) The minister, whose fame and fortune depended on the prosperity of the state, was accused of betraying Italy
to the barbarians, whom he repeatedly vanquished at
Pollentia, at Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His
pretended design of placing the diadem on the head of his
son Eucherius could not have been conducted without
preparations or accomplices, and the ambitious father would
not surely have left the future emperor, till the twentieth
year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the
notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the
malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost miraculous,
deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause of the
clergy, who asserted that the restoration of idols and the
persecution of the church would have been the first measure
of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was
educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had
uniformly professed and zealously supported.(111) Serena had
borrowed her magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta ;
(112) and the Pagans execrated the memory of the sacrilegious
minister, by whose order the Sibylline books, the oracles of
Rome had been committed to the flames.(113) The pride and
power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honourable
reluctance to shed the blood of his countrymen appears to
have contributed to the success of his unworthy rival; and
it is the last humiliation of the character of Honorius,
that posterity has not condescended to reproach him with his
base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth and the
support of his empire.
The poet Claudian
Among the train of dependents whose wealth and dignity
attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is
excited by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who
enjoyed the favour of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the
ruin of his patron. The titular offices of tribune and
notary fixed his rank in the Imperial court. He was indebted
to the powerful intercession of Serena for his marriage with
a rich heiress of the province of Africa;(114) and the statue
of Claudian, erected in the forum of Trajan, was a monument
of the taste and liberality of the Roman senate.(115) After
the praises of Stilicho became offensive and criminal,
Claudian was exposed to the enmity of a powerful and
unforgiving courtier whom he had provoked by the insolence
of wit. He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite
characters of two Praetorian praefects of Italy; he
contrasts the innocent repose of a philosopher, who
sometimes resigned the hours of business to slumber, perhaps
to study, with the interested diligence of a rapacious
minister, indefatigable in the pursuit of unjust or
sacrilegious gain.
"How happy," continues Claudian, "how happy might it be for the people of Italy if Mallius could be constantly awake, and if Hadrian would always sleep!" (116)
The repose of Mallius was not disturbed by this friendly and gentle admonition; but the cruel vigilance of Hadrian watched the opportunity of revenge, and easily obtained from the enemies of Stilicho the trifling sacrifice of an obnoxious poet. The poet concealed himself, however, during the tumult of the revolution, and consulting the dictates of prudence rather than of honour, he addressed, in the form of an epistle, a suppliant and humble recantation to the offended praefect. He deplores, in mournful strains, the fatal indiscretion into which he had been hurried by passion and folly; submits to the imitation of his adversary the generous examples of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and expresses his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on a defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the death of his dearest friends.(117) Whatever might be the success of his prayer or the accidents of his future life, the period of a few years levelled in the grave the minister and the poet: but the name of Hadrian is almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is read with pleasure in every country which has retained or acquired the knowledge of the Latin language. If we fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that Claudian does not either satisfy or silence our reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek in the poems of Claudian the happy invention and artificial conduct of an interesting fable, or the just and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life. For the service of his patron he published occasional panegyrics and invectives, and the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and precious talent of raising the meanest, of adoring the most barren, and of diversifying the most similar topics; his colouring, more especially in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an easy and sometimes forcible expression, and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of any accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit which Claudian derived from the unfavourable circumstances of his birth. In the decline of arts and of empire, a native of Egypt,(118) who had received the education of a Greek, assumed in a mature age the familiar use and absolute command of the Latin language;(119) soared above the heads of his feeble contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome.(120)
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